


MEET ME ON THE BATTLEFIELD ▷ BUCKY BARNES [1]

by verticulars



Series: Querencia Series [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, Wonder Woman - All Media Types
Genre: Captain America: The First Avenger, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-23
Updated: 2019-01-02
Packaged: 2019-03-23 02:18:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 22
Words: 25,052
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13777608
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/verticulars/pseuds/verticulars
Summary: ❝ Meet me on the battlefield, even on the darkest night, I can be your sword and shield, your camouflage and you will be mine. ❞CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE FIRST AVENGERCAPTAIN AMERICA: THE WINTER SOLDIERCOPYRIGHT © SOFTLACE14 2018





	1. 00. COPYRIGHT

❝  _Meet me on the battlefield, even on the darkest night, I can be your sword and shield, your camouflage and you will be mine._  ❞

 

**COPYRIGHT © SOFTLACE14 2018**

_All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher._

 

**DISCLAIMER**

This will have sexual themes and death, read at your own risk.

 


	2. 00. CAST + PLAYLIST

**CAST**

| GAL GADOT  _as_  DIANA PRINCE |  
| WONDER WOMAN |

  
| CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE FIRST AVENGER CAST  _as_  THEMSELVES |  
| THE HOWLING COMMANDOS |

  
**PLAYLIST**  
| MEET ME ON THE BATTLEFIELD by SVRCINA | (MAIN THEME)

| PUT YOUR HEAD ON MY SHOULDER by PAUL ANKA | WANTED DEAD OR ALIVE by BON JOVI | SWEET DREAMS by EMILY BROWNING | KILLING STRANGERS by MARYLIN MANSON | YOUNG GOD by HALSEY | GAME OF SURVIVAL by RUELLE | SILENT RUNNING by HIDDEN CITIZENS | BREATH by FLEURIE

|  **"** I used to want to save the world. To end war and bring peace to mankind. But then, I glimpsed the darkness that lives within their light. I learned that inside every one of them, there will always be both. The choice each must make for themselves - something no hero will ever defeat. I've touched the darkness that lives in between the light. Seen the worst of this world, and the best. Seen the terrible things men do to each other in the name of hatred, and the lengths they'll go to for love. Now I know. Only love can save this world. So I stay. I fight, and I give. . . for the world I know can be. This is my mission, now. Forever.  **"** |


	3. 00. PROLOGUE

❝ Remembering the past gives power to the present. ❞ 

☾ ☾ ☾ 

 

**STEVE**  watched the helicopter fly outside the warehouse he, Sam, and Bucky were hiding in, trying to find the three soldiers that had escaped the imprisonment of the American government in Germany. "Hey, Cap," Sam called out to him from behind, nodding to the open doorway he stood beside. Steve jogged over, seeing his best friend with his metal arm pinned against a hydraulic press, groaning in pain as he sat up slowly. His hand gripped onto one of the levers, "Steve."

"Which Bucky am I talking to?"

"Your mom's name was Sarah," it was the old Bucky, the one that had slept around with many girls but still had a big heart. His lips pulled up into a small smile as he remembered different things. "You used to wear newspapers in your shoes," a chuckle escaped his mouth, happy that he could memorize something.

"Can't read that in a museum," Steve raises his eyebrows.

"Just like that, we're supposed to be cool?" Sam knew Bucky wanted to be treated like a normal human being, not one that was as dainty as a china plate, but one that could handle his own business. Though he knew this, he still was wary of him; what if he went Winter Soldier on their asses again? What then? Steve would try to make him look like it wasn't his fault ― although it wasn't entirely him, his body still did the killing ― and he didn't want for anyone else to get hurt. Bucky turns his head to the dark-skinned man.

"What did I do?"

"Enough," Bucky sighs and bows his head.

"Oh, God. I knew this would happen," he regrets everything he's ever done. "Everything HYDRA put inside me is still there. All he had to do was say the goddamn words." Sam wanted to make fun of Steve and put a little light-hearted humor in there and say 'Language', but he didn't want to seem like a dick, so he kept his mouth shut. "Who was he?" Steve asks, Bucky shaking his head in confusion. "I don't know."

"People are dead," Steve replies. "The bombing, the set-up. . . The doctor did all that just to get 10 minutes with you. I need you to do better than 'I don't know'."

"He wanted to know about Siberia," Bucky answers, recollecting his thoughts. "Where I was kept. He wanted to know exactly where."

"Why would he need to know that?"

"Because I'm not the only Winter Soldier."

"Who were they?" Steve goes to stand against a wall, arms crossed over his chest, right foot pressed against the concrete behind him.

"Their most elite death squad. More kills than anyone in HYDRA history. And that was before the serum."

"They all turn out like you?" Sam asks, hands slipped into the back pockets of his jeans. He was getting interested in the facts, but more of a focused type of interested instead of a kid listening to his grandfather's stories type.

"Worse."

"The doctor, could he control them?"

"Enough," Bucky turns his head, Steve seeing the dried, caked-up blood on his left side of his head from their fight earlier. If he wanted to fit in as much as possible, it needed to be washed away.

"Said he wanted to see an empire fall."

"With these guys, he could do it. They speak 30 languages, can hide in plain sight, infiltrate, assassinate, destabilize. They can take a whole country down in one night, you'd never see them coming," Sam begins walking around, arms going to cross over his stomach.

"This would've been a lot easier a week ago," Sam whispers to Steve.

"If we call Tony. . ."

"No, he won't believe us."

"Even if he did. . ."

"Who knows if the Accords would let him help."

"We're on our own."

"Maybe not. I know a guy."


	4. ACT ONE

「act one. ❝ soldier, keep on marchin' on. ❞」 

 

❝  _Soldier, keep on marchin' on, head down till the work is done. Waiting for the morning sun, soldier, keep on marchin' on._  ❞

 

❝ We're standing face-to-face with our own human race. We commit the sins again and our sons and daughters pay. ❞

❝ You wanna take a drink of that promised land, you gotta wipe off of your hands. Careful, son, you got dreamers plans, but it gets hard to stand. ❞ 

 

** TABLE OF CONTENTS **

00\. COPYRIGHT

00\. CAST + PLAYLIST

00\. PROLOGUE

01\. CRY WOLF

02\. EYES ON FIRE

03\. SILENT RUNNING

04\. BREATHE

05\. GAME OF SURVIVAL

06\. BELIEF

07\. FAREWELL (EPILOGUE TO ACT ONE)


	5. 01. CRY WOLF

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Listen to this as you read: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P38Pinyqq_U

❝ When your heart is borrowed, where the grass is green but underneath your cold and hollow. Yeah, the word's sweet but no, see, they're hard to swallow. So sick of your crooked smile and your counterfeit soul. ❞ 

☾ ☾ ☾ 

**BUCKY**  was walking beside little Steve, "I don't see what the problem is. You're about to be the last eligible man in New York. You know, there's three and a half million women here." Steve shrugs at his best friend, staring at his feet. Bucky was the man that every girl wanted to sleep with, even for a night, and they threw themselves at him. Steve, well, he never got any women. 

"Well, I'd settle for just one." 

"Good thing I took care of that," Bucky waves to the dates he's picked up, Connie and Bonnie, and they both squeal.

"What did you tell her about me?" Steve becomes nervous, afraid of what might spill out of his mouth in front of the girl, afraid of embarrassing himself. What happens if he's eating and talking and a piece of food flies into her mouth? Now  _that_  was going to be the worst thing that can happen, for sure. Bucky claps him on his bony shoulder, "Only the good stuff." They all walk around, an announcer beginning to talk to the people that are filing about.

"Welcome to the Modern Marvels Pavilion and the World of Tomorrow. A greater world. A better world."

"Oh my god, it's starting!" Connie says excitedly. She tugs Bonnie and Bucky to the stage, leaving Steve to trail behind slowly, defeated as he puts his hands in his pockets; Bucky had gotten him a date and his date only wanted to be with Bucky and the other chick. "Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Howard Stark!" The dark-haired man runs out from behind a curtain and goes to the announcer, Mandy, and gives a kiss as he takes the microphone from her hand. He wipes away his lips with a handkerchief. "Ladies and gentlemen, what if I told you that in just a few short years, your automobile won't even have to touch the ground at all." The female helpers take the wheels of the car off as he speaks. "With Stark robotic reversion technology, you'll be able to do just that."

He uses a switch with a red ball glued to the end to make the car hover above ground, the crowd gasping, "Holy cow." The hovers malfunction and drop the heavy box back on the ground, the crowd stepping back. "I did say a few year, didn't I?" The audience laughs, clapping at his invention, Steve dissapearing, "Hey, Steve, what do you say we treat these girls. . ." 

At the recruitment center, Steve steps on top of the small machine that glued his face onto the body of the soldier in the wall, but he's too short to fill it out. "Come on," Bucky finds him, "you're kind of missing the point of a double date. We're taking the girls dancing." 

"You go ahead, I'll catch up with you."

"You're really going to do this again?"

"Well, it's a fair," Steve shrugs. "I'm gonna try my luck."

"As who? Steve from Ohio? They'll catch you. Or worse, they'll actually take you," Steve sighs at his friend. He shakes his head, "Look, I know you don't think I can do this." 

"This isn't a back alley, Steve, it's a war."

"I know it's a war. You don't have to tell me," Steve loved Bucky like a brother, but sometimes Bucky treated him as he were a child and he didn't like that. He didn't need it to be clarified that he was going to sign up for war, not a school debate on why students should be allowed to go to the library whenever they needed to study. "Why are you so keen to fight?" Bucky asks him. "There are so many important jobs."

"What am I going to do? Collect scrap metal. . ."

"Yes!"

". . . in my little red wagon."

"Why not?" Bucky just wanted to protect his friend, the only one that really did care about him, and he wanted to go to war; Steve couldn't even handle himself in a regular fist fight, why does he think he could handle himself in a place where hundreds are being murdered, wounded, and tortured for information. "I'm not going to sit in a factory, Bucky," Steve shakes his head at him again. 

"I don't. . ."

"Bucky, come on! There are men laying down their lives. I got no right to do any less than them. That's what you don't understand. This isn't about me," Steve had always been selfless, a person who would risk his life to save others, and Bucky had a love/hate relationship with that side of him. "Right," Bucky scoffs, "'cause you got nothing to prove." Connie calls out to them, "Hey, Sarge! Are we going dancing?" Bucky turns around, arms splayed wide open in front of him while a smirk spreads across his lips, "Yes, we are." He turns back to Steve, "Don't do anything until I get back."

"How can I? You're taking all the stupid with you."

"You're a punk."

"Jerk. Be careful," Steve watches Bucky walk away. "Don't win the war until I get there." Bucky salutes and goes back to the girls, and they don't see one person; a woman with dark hair and eyes watching them from far away. She points at Steve and gives a thumbs up. 

They had found their man.

 


	6. 02. EYES ON FIRE

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Listen to this as you read: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LnRe8Q5r6rE

❝ I'm taking it slow, feeding my flame, shuffling the cards of your game. And just in time, in the right place, suddenly I will play my ace. ❞

☾ ☾ ☾ 

**"GENERAL**  Platton has said that wars are fought with weapons but they are won by men," Colonel Chester Phillips walks around the group of recruits, Steve among them, Peggy and a mysterious woman watching them. The woman that watched them had tanned skin and black hair and brown eyes, wearing a high-necked white button-up shirt and a navy blue shirt that stopped at her knees, a pair of navy blue heels on her feet, her dark hair thrown up in a ponytail. She looked like someone Bucky would've hooked up with, but this woman. . . she seemed like the one that didn't take shit from anybody. "We are going to win this war because we have the best men. . ." Phillips' eyes land on Steve. "And because they're gonna get better. Much better. The Strategic Scientific Reserve is an Allied effort made up of the best minds in the free world. Our goal is to create the best army in history. But every army starts with one man. At the end of this week, we will choose that man. He will be the first in a new breed of super-soldiers. And they will personally escort Adolf Hitler to the gates of Hell." 

Durin training, Steve lacked physical strength; his feet got stuck in the nets they had to climb, men broke a stump of wood that held the barbed wire up from the recruits, and Sergeant Duffy (the person they trained with) only told him to get his rifle out of the mud. 

Steve ran behind all of the other men, huffing from lack of air, the other men being perfectly fine from all of the running they had done. They all stopped at a flagpole, Peggy and the mystery woman sitting on the back seats of a truck, a pencil placed between Peggy Carter's red painted lips as the woman next to her seemed to be sharpening something; sparks carried out of the truck. The sergeant told them why they stopped, "That flag means we're only at the halfway point. First man to bring it to me gets a ride back with Agent Carter and Agent Prince. Move, move!" 

The soldiers try to climb it but to no avail; it felt like someone had greased the poles beforehand. The sergeant knew why they were so eager to get in the truck: they got to go with two of the prettiest women in the camp. "If that's all you got, this army's in trouble! Get up there, Hodge! Come on! Get up there! Nobody's got that flag in 17 years! Now fall back into line! Come on, fall in! Let's go! Get back into formation! Rogers! I said fall in!" Steve walks up to the pole, unlatches two hooks from the bottom of it, the pole falling into the hard dirt. He throws down the metal in his hands and grabs the flag, hading it over to Duffy and jumping in the back; he now knew what Agent Prince was doing ― she was sharpening her sword. When he gets back with Bucky, he was going to ask him about her; perhaps he knew something. 

While doing push-ups, Agent Carter was giving small jabs at them, saying how her grandmother could do more push-ups than them, but bless her soul (dead), and Agent Prince was training others in hand-to-hand combat, throwing hard punches and kicks at all of the men that went to throw a fist at her: they all landed on the ground with groans. "You're not really thinking about picking Rogers, are you?" Colonel Phillips asks Doctor Erskine.

"I am more than just thinking about it. He is the clear choice."

"When you brought a ninety pounds asthmatic onto my army base, I let it slide. I thought, what the hell? Maybe he'll be useful to you, like a gerbil. I never thought you'd pick him." When the colonel and doctor walk up to the soldiers, Peggy orders, "Up." 

"You stick a needle in that kid's arm and it's gonna go right through him," the two stand by a truck. Steve is struggling to do jumping jacks, breathing heavily, arms limp as he jumps and flings them into the air. "Look at that. He's making me cry." Erskine shakes his head, "I look for qualities beyond the physical." 

"Do you know how long it took to set up this project?"

"Yes. I know."

"All the groveling I had to do in front of Senator What's-His-Name's committees?"

"Brandt.Yes, I know. I am well aware of your efforts."

"Then throw me a bone. Hodge passed every test we gave him. He's big, he's fast, he obeys orders. He's a soldier."

"He's a bully."

"You don't win wars with niceness, doctor," he takes a hand grenade, unpins it. "You win war with guts." He throws the grenade to the recruits and yells, "Grenade!" Steve jumps on top of it as the others hide behind different vehicles, Diana watching the smaller male telling others to stay away and get back: selflessness rushed throw his veins.

A good man.

"Is this a test?" Steve asks as he gets off of it, Erskine raising his eyebrows at the colonel. "He's still skinny." 

 

  ☾ ☾ ☾   

**"GOOD**  morning," Erskine shakes Steve's hand, the two surrounded by nurses and other scientists, Howard sitting by a massive machine, Peggy standing beside Steve. A photographer takes a photo, blinding the three for a bit, "Please, not now." The photographer walks away as Steve looks at the pod, "Are you ready?" He nods. "Good, take off your shirt, your tie, and your hat." 

Steve takes it all off, laying in the pod as his eyes search for Agent Prince: nowhere. "Comfortable?" Erskine asks him. He nods, "It's a little big. You save any of that Schnapps for me?"

"Not as much as I should have," Erskine looks sheepish. "Sorry. Next time. Mr. Stark, how are your levels?"

"Levels at 100%."

"Good."

"We may dim half the lights in Brooklyn, but we are ready as we'll ever be."

"Agent Carter, don't you think you would be more comfortable in the booth?"

She apologizes and scurries off to the overlooking balcony with its protective glass and stone walls, Erskine grabbing a microphone from an assistant and taps it with his finger, releasing small shrieks. "Ladies and gentlemen, today we take not another step towards annihilation, but the first step on the path to peace. We begin with a series of micro injections into the subjects major muscle groups. The serum infusion will cause immediate cellular change. And then to stimulate growth, the subject will be saturated with Vita-Rays." Nurses place down different pads on Steve's body, on his chest, then placing vials with sapphire blue liquid in their designated spots. A nurse punctures his skin with a needle, putting a clear liquid in his veins. "That wasn't so bad." 

"That was penicillin," Erskine replies, turning to face the others in the lab. "Serum infusion beginning in five, four, three, two, one." Two other pads move down on Steve's arms, needles poking out of them and perforating his skin. Howard Stark moves a lever on a control panel, the cerulean liquid filling Steve's system. "Now, Mr. Stark." Howard lowers another leaver, the pod moves upright and enclosing Steve inside, lab assistants putting large hoses spilling fog into the machine. Erskine knocks on the metal, "Steven, can you hear me?" 

"It's probably too late to go to the bathroom, right?"

"We will proceed," Howard begins spinning a roulette, the needle inside the control panel moving, Howard beginning to tell them the numbers by tenths. "Vital signs are vital," another doctor tells them. When it reaches 70%, Steve starts to scream from receiving the Vita-Rays, Peggy yelling at them to shut it down, but Steve yells out, "No, don't; I can do this!" Howard goes back to the wheel and proceeds the procedure. Once it reaches 100%, everything overloads until the pod shuts itself down, the doors opening and smoke releasing into the room. Steve is now larger, taller, more muscular than he was. Sweat shone on his body, his chest heaving, and doctors and nurses run up, helping the guy out of the contraption; now that he was big, he could barely fit in the damn thing. "How do you feel?" Peggy stands in front of him, now dwarfed by his size.

"Taller."

"You look taller," she snatches a T-shirt from a nurse and hands it over, watching as Steve pulls it over his head, his stomach muscles rippling. 

From what Howard Stark knew, she wanted to marry Steve.

 


	7. 03. SILENT RUNNING

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> listen to this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6lu82oMmJ2o

  ❝  Don't believe the church and state, and everything they tell you. Believe in me, I'm with the high command. ❞ 

  ☾   ☾    ☾

**DOCTOR**  Arnim Zola packs everything he can, his maps, blueprints, field and scientific notes, but he forgot to take down the map with the German bases pinned onto it; the Allies can use it easily for some information to where they would hide out. Diana had come out as Wonder Woman to Steve when she walked into the plane wearing the iconic armor; Steve was shocked that his childhood hero was always there in the camp with him. She taught him a few basic maneuvers with his shield, teaching him how to throw it and use it to deflect other things, and even threw in her sword in there. She felt pity for him: a man that wanted nothing but to save his country and those innocent people around the world yet he was put into a show. 

On the map, the bases were put in different countries ― no more than one; Italy, Greece, Ukraine, France, a country called Ostland (the Baltic states were gathered up by the Germans), and Germany. Diana was out in the field, fighting alongside other soldiers, while Steve went looking for Bucky. He saw Zola running out of his office, carrying two leather-bound bags and his coat, seeing freeze before beginning to run the opposite direction; Steve began running to him, but soon stops when he gets to the door the doctor ran out of. Yellow light spilled out of the room, giving the supersoldier's face an eerie glow. When he walked in, he was on alert, the yellow light turning white as he went into the brick room, a soft mumbling coming from a table. "Sergeant, three-two-five-five-seven," Steve runs up to the man, seeing Bucky with a bleeding ear, muttering his information.

"Bucky," Steve says, the man's blue eyes opening and seeing his now-tall best friend. Steve mutters an 'oh-my-god' and unlatches the restraints holding him down, "Is that. . ."

"It's me," Steve confirms. 

"Steve? Steve."

"C'mon," Steve tugs him up. "I thought you were dead." Bucky's azure eyes do a double-take on him, taking in all of the muscle and height he had grown. "I thought you were smaller." An explosion is heard behind them, Steve's sweaty head turning to see view the map, taking count of all the little triangular paper on it, gunshots heard all around them along with screams of pain. "Come on," Steve pulls Bucky beside him while he walks, "What happened to you?" "I joined the Army." Ally forces took the tanks HYDRA had, shooting down soldiers as Diana jumped over them, shield and sword in hand, hair flying behind her, whipping along her back. "Did it hurt?" Bucky was good enough to walk by himself. 

"A little."

"Is it permanent?"

"So far."

Diana runs beside the tank through the wall they had destroyed, smirking as she felt power laced into her bones; this was where she belonged. Schmidt didn't want his facility to be used, so he had planted bombs inside the place and had the controls inside the room in which he watched the soldiers from, a control ticking down to  _'00:00',_  and a landmine explodes. This happens with many others, Steve and Bucky going to a walkway, staring over the side. They duck as another bomb explodes near them, both deciding to go to the walkway above. They make it without a scratch, "Captain America!" Schmidt says, standing on the metal sidewalk. "How exciting!" He hands a briefcase to his doctor. "I am a great fan of your films! So, Doctor Erskine managed it after all." The two walk closer through a bridge-like path. "Not exactly an improvement, but still, impressive."

Bucky watches over his friend, making sure he didn't get hurt. Steve lands a punch on Schmidt's face, the right undereye moving off his face, "You've got no idea." 

"Haven't I?" Schmidt goes to punch Steve, but the blonde moves his shield so his fist could connect with the metal, a large indent of a fist showing up on it. The Brooklyn-born man reaches for his pistol but the HYDRA leader is too fast, his fist has already connected with Steve's chin, knocking him back onto the metal grating. When Schmidt moves closer, Steve kicks him in the chest with both feet, making the leader hit the metal some feet away. Zola moves a lever that makes the bridge separate, moving the two men to their respective side. Steve's pistol had fallen over the side. Both men stand up. "No matter what lies Erskine told you, you see, I was his greatest success!" Schmidt yells at him, hand moving to the bottom of his jaw, Steve and Bucky watching in horror as the man lifts a mask off, revealing a bald, red-faced thing underneath. He had no nose, no hair whatsoever, and his bones were very prominent through the skin. "You don't have one of those, do you?" Bucky asks. 

"You are deluded, Captain. You pretend to be a simple soldier, but in reality, you are just afraid to admit we have left humanity behind." He throws the mask over the edge, letting it catch on fire before moving away from the broken bridge, grabbing his briefcase from Zola. "Unlike you, I embrace it proudly. Without fear!"

"Then how come you're running?"


	8. 04. BREATHE

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> listen to this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQVop3-OOXc

❝ Angels and skylines meet, and I'm straining to reach the light on the surface, light on the other side. ❞ 

☾ ☾ ☾ 

 

**BUCKY**  and Steve were at the bar, talking about both of them going back into the battlefield, together, when Peggy had come up to them and listening in to the conversation. They didn't mind, they liked her company, and let her jab in remarks to the discussion. That was when his eyes landed on  _her,_  the mystery woman. She wore a sapphire blue Ancient Greek style dress that brushed along the floor as she walked, a sleeve longer than the other, her hand sneaking up behind her, as if searching for something, and whatever her hand landed on made her face look a bit more relaxed than before. She was pretty tall, almost six feet in height, probably taller, with warm, tanned skin and sparkling brown eyes. Her brunette hair was put into an elaborate bun at the base of her neck, and he noticed that all the men had stopped talking and began staring at her.

When she had walked up to them, her eyes were hard-set, like she was still in battle, but small traces of happiness lined the corners, which were crinkled up as she smiled. A tiny dimple at the top of her cheek, on the upper right-hand corner of her ear, had come to life when the corner of her lips tugged up. She introduced herself as Diana Prince, her voice having a thick accent, one that made her say Steve's name weirdly: St-eh-ve.

Her eyes landed on him and they looked worried. Steve and Peggy had started a conversation of their own as Diana leaned in and whispered, "Are you alright?"

He didn't know what she was talking about until he felt his manhood press tightly against the fabric of his trousers, and, with an embarrassed flush on his cheeks, he excused himself as coolly as possible, hiding the boner from unwanted eyes. She looked truly troubled, hands gripping onto the sleeve of her dress, watching him as he walked away. Bucky persuaded the blonde secretary to come into the bathroom tents with him, her eagerness of having sex after going for a few months without it, but Bucky was quiet. He didn't want this blonde woman. He wanted Diana.

She attracted him towards her like honey attracts flies. From her full lips to her warm brown eyes, the blonde female giving him oral was nowhere near being as beautiful as the Amazon. He shook his head and reminded himself that he had just met Diana, he shouldn't be having feelings towards her beside friendly feelings.

His manhood turned flaccid in the blonde's mouth before he could chase his orgasm; he was done with the sexual feelings and peeled the woman off of him. She muttered something about him having to have sex with her in return, which he replied with a 'no thank you.' She slapped him and walked away, Bucky rubbing his cheek and sliding his pants up. ' _Fucking bitch,_ ' he thought.

He walked out in the chilly night and followed the sounds of the loud chatter and music. The only light source came from the small slit in the tent, but he made it far enough without tripping to actually pull it open, letting the light and sounds flood out and the cold rush in. Many didn't care, but others moved out of the way to the warmest spot they could find.

"Where were you?" Steve asked as he drew nearer.

"Uh..." he thought, "I was in the bath tent."

"I saw that you went with Miss Doyle there. Why?"

Bucky knew not to lie to Steve; he somehow always knew. Bucky still sputtered as he tried to answer. "Uh, well you see Steve. . . when a man ―"

"Diana turned you, didn't she?"

"Yes."

 

☾ ☾ ☾ 

**DIANA**  went to sleep that night thinking about the blue-eyed, brunette boy from Brooklyn. He was really nice to her despite rushing out within five minutes of meeting her, a mysterious bulge in his pants, his cheeks painted red with blood blush. He talked about how Steve used to be short and small, how they both used to sleep together in order to keep Steve warm during the winter, and how they both used to go to the library and scope out old books.

The man she saw in front of her seemed like the man he talked about; sincere and caring for others despite the fact he, too, has gone through some hardships over the years. He told her about his parents and his younger sister, Winifred, or 'Winnie' for short.

He then asked her how many family members she had and she replied with a quick, 'Just my mother.' He asked her about her life, though she lied most of the time, she told some truths. She told that her family had a long line of soldiers from another country (Greece), how her aunt had died when she was younger and replied that she was currently twenty-four years of age.

Diana wished she was able to speak to him even more, but duty called and she had to be ready to answer it.


	9. 05. GAME OF SURVIVAL

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> listen to this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-T5eYF9WiRI

❝ Are we the hunters? Or are we the prey? There's no surrender, and there's no escape. ❞ 

☾ ☾ ☾ 

**"CARBON** polymer," Howard Stark tells Steve and Diana as they walk down the lab, Steve's hands in his pockets as Diana's hands hung by her side. They all looked down at a black fabric, "Should withstand your average German bayonet. Although HYDRA's not going to attack you both with a pocket knife. I hear you're kind of attached." Howard pats Steve's showcase shield as they walk down the table again. Diana was wearing a dark grey skirt with its matching jacket, a white collar peeking out from under the neckline of the buttoned overcoat and a hat was resting on her head. Her hair was put into a bun to make it stay out of her way. 

"It's handier than you might think," Steve replies, watching Howard scoff.

"I took the liberty of coming up with some options," Howard says, different shields were resting on the table, waiting to be used, all of them looking a little different from the rest. They were hideous to Diana, but she kept her mouth shut. "This one's fun," Steve's eyes wander to a sleek circular shield. "She's been fitted with electrical relays that allow you to. . ."

"What about this one?" He bends to pick it up, Howard beginning to protest against that shield. 

"No, no, that's just a prototype."

"What's it made of?"

"Vibranium," Howard answers, Diana's fingers sliding across the silver metallic surface. "It's stronger than steel and third the weight." Steve had grown to like Diana, her caring, reliable, influential character really easy to get used to. "It's completely vibration absorbent." 

"Give it a nice blue and red paint job and you got yourself a shield, Steve," Diana says as the supersoldier slides his arm through the loops, and she knocks on it with her knuckles a few times, a dull sound emitting from it. Steve looked at her with a mix of confusion and happiness; he felt the small little vibrations from it when she knocked on it like a door. 

"How come it's not standard issue?"

"It's the rarest metal on Earth," Diana responds. "This is the only bit we have."

"Quite finished, Mr. Stark?" Peggy rounds a corner into the lab. She wore her standard issue uniform, the skirt brushing against her knees as she walked to the group. "I'm sure the captain has some unfinished business." She was still mad at Steve for kissing that secretary, and even mad that he tried to deny the fact he was kissing her as well. Everybody kissed back on their first kiss. Steve turns to her and holds up the shield, "What do you think?" Peggy stares at him for a while before gritting her teeth, picks up the handgun on her left, and shoots the shield four times, Steve holding it up for protection. Steve looks back up at her with grief in his eyes; the woman he cared about almost killed him. Diana was in a fighting stance, one she wore into the battlefield, and Howard had his arm over his eyes, crouching low. Peggy gives out an audible sigh, "Yes, I think it works." 

She sets down the gun and walks away, giving Steve a small glare, Diana relaxing from her position. "I had some ideas about the uniform," Steve hands over a piece of paper to Howard, handwritten notes scribbled on it. 

"Whatever you want, pal." 

 

  ☾ ☾ ☾   

**STEVE**  placed the rifle inside a holster that was nailed to the side of a motorcycle, placing a handgun on the one on his belt, his new shield at his back. Diana put on her black cloak and her shield and sword were tucked safely inside it, her armor shielded away from unwanted eyes. She was going to go with the Howling Commandos, which was led by Steve. 

Later in the day, they all burst into the warehouse the HYDRA men were hiding in, the Commandos shooting people down as Diana wielded her sword and struck many in the chest, effectively killing them. Outside, U.S. soldiers were fighting, killing all they could. Steve hit one man in the chest with his shield, striking another in the face. Diana was letting out war cries as she impaled a man with her sword, the Commandos running out from the building before it exploded. Steve came out on his motorcycle, Diana on her horse, both of them riding along each other. 

    ☾ ☾ ☾     

**THE**  Red Skull arrived at the place a little too late, the town already burned down by the U.S. Military. In one of the rooms hidden underground back in the States, a man moves a red flag from the map and hands it over to Peggy using a large stick, Peggy putting the flag back inside the box. Bucky was still in shock that his childhood hero was very much alive and fighting alongside him, despite being however many years old. 

    ☾ ☾ ☾     

**IN** the thick fog in the forest, Steve led the Commandos through a forest, raising his arm to stop them, sensing something. He steps into a small clearing and clearly sees something, throwing his shield with accuracy, a German soldier falling out of the tree he hid in with a groan. The men in front look back at the fallen man, eyes wide. Steve catches his shield and places it back on his arm, Diana giving him a small smile before they all went into battle. A truck exploded, the Howling Commandos running towards it, men firing their rifles and Steve and Diana raising their shields while running. Diana used her sword to cut through a man's chest, his blood splattering on her leg. Jim Morita, the only Asian American man on the elite squad, lets out a whistle to another, his flashlight shining for a few seconds. One of the Commandos run while clutching a metal cylinder in his hand, running under a tank and latching it on. He stands up after it drives over him without a scratch, seeing the small red light blink underneath the massive thing, covering his ears as it explodes in a flash of orange. He claps once, Dum Dum Dugan letting out a chuckle. 

    ☾ ☾ ☾     

**BUCKY** aims at the head of a HYDRA soldier, Diana kneeling beside him, keeping him protected from any stray enemies as he took the shot, killing the guy. He cocks the sniper rifle again, Steve giving him a short salute before going inside. Diana claps a hand on his shoulder softly, causing the man's cheeks to go red. 

    ☾ ☾ ☾     

**STEVE**  jumps and strikes down a man clad in black with his round shield, Diana beside him as she wielded her sword proudly and sliced down the men that were in her reach, Steve's body turning as he let go of his shield. 

    ☾ ☾ ☾     

**STEVE** jumps on top of a tank, using the edge of his shield to break the latch holding the door closed, grabbing a HYDRA soldier by the shoulder and throws him away, one of the Commandos throwing a pack of grenades to him and Steve throws it down, shutting the door behind him, and running off, the monstrous tank exploding in multiple places at numerous times. 

    ☾ ☾ ☾     

**"YOU** are failing!" Schmidt yells at Zola as they stare down at the damage done to the town. "We are close to an offensive that will shake the planet, yet we are continually delayed because you cannot outwit a simpleton with a shield and a woman with a sword." 

"This is hardly my area of expertise," Zola counters, "I merely developed the weapons. I cannot fire them." 

"Finish your mission, Doctor, before the American finishes his," Schmidt threateningly walks towards the short doctor, a soldier cutting him off.

"Sir!" He yells. 

"I'm sorry, Herr Schmidt," a man with a suit and tie with brown hair tells the leader. "We fought to the last man." Schmidt brings out his gun and points it at the man, Zola looking away, "Evidently not." 


	10. 06. BELIEF

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Listen to this as you read: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4YL6ZGXFjQ

  ❝  I can save today, you can save the world. ❞

  ☾   ☾   ☾  

**JAMES**  Montgomery Falsworth looks through his binoculars, the Howling Commandos team walking around a bit on the edge of the cliff they stood on, waiting for the train, Diana using a rock she had found to sharpen her sword. She and Dum Dum Dugan were having a quick, quiet conversation. It had been months since Bucky and Diana had met, and, to be pretty honest, Bucky felt like he liked her as more than just a friend. The Themyscira native knew that and kissed him on their way to one of their battles. Ever since then they both had started dating, or as close as you can get to dating while on the battlefield, and Bucky had stolen a ring from a jewelry shop from one of the towns they had taken from the HYDRA soldiers and was planning to propose to Diana as soon as the war was over. 

Jim was tuning in to a radio, listening for anything of importance as Gabe Jones sat near him to listen as well. "Remember when I made you ride the Cyclone at Coney Island?" Bucky asks Steve, both Diana's and Dum Dum's attention turning to them but they didn't say a word. "Yeah, and I threw up?" Steve retorts. Bucky's eyes continue to watch the frozen land below them, "This isn't payback, is it?" 

"Now why would I do that?"

"We were right, Dr. Zola's on the train," Gabe speaks up, all attention turning to him. "HYDRA dispatcher gave him permission to open up the throttle. Wherever he's going, they must need him bad." Steve puts on his helmet as Diana takes off her cloak, both walking closer to the edge. "Let's get going because they're running like the devil," James says, making all stand up and put on their gear, Steve placing a zip line on the wire they had placed a while before. "We only got about a 10-second window." Bucky turns to Diana, eyes flicking up her angelic face. "And if we miss that window, we're bugs on a window."

"Good luck, Princess," he presses a kiss to her lips, enjoying the feel of them, the soft, full touch. 

"And you, Sergeant." 

"Mind the gap," James tells Steve. 

"Better get moving, bugs!" Dum Dum says. 

"Right now!" Jacques says in his thick accent, Steve pushing himself off and lets the zip line lead him to the train, the other Commandos following him as Diana just easily jumps off, landing on the train's roof, scaring Zola and his guards. Steve lands in front of Diana while Bucky lands behind her, kneeling, breath heavy. They were turning left, the group walking along the train's rooftop as they went at high speeds, crouching slightly to make sure they don't get blown off. They reach a ladder, Steve and Diana climbing down easily while the others staying where they were and making sure no HYDRA agents escaped. Bucky gets in behind them, closing the sliding door, all getting their weapons ready as they walked towards the other side. Steve looks back at Diana and Bucky before going into the other cabin. 

The sliding doors close behind Diana and Steve, locking Bucky in the last compartment, Diana beating against the door. Bucky shakes his head at her, making her stop. He shoots as the men sneaking in behind him, a weird noise sounding from behind the two enhanced people, both turning to see a man with what looked like canons, Steve shooting at him but nothing happened. The man fires back, the two diving behind multiple sets of bombs. "Stop them!" Zola yells into the man's earpiece, making him fire again. "Fire again!" 

Two men come from the other side of Bucky's cabin, the Brooklyn native firing, killing them both. Diana gets into the aisle where the enemy was, wielding her sword as she gave him a smirk before jumping into the air, her sword pulled back as she let out a war cry, slicing the HYDRA agent's neck open. Bucky continues to discharge at the men, hiding behind barrels to protect him. He uses his handgun to fire at the last remaining man as he walked to the right side, clutching his arm to his stomach. Steve shoots at the door with the futuristic rifle, both running to the carriage, ready for battle. They both looked through the little glass pane to see Bucky shooting, hiding behind large crates for protection as he ran out of bullets. Steve hid behind the wall, contemplating what to do, but his train of thought was disrupted when Diana kicked down the door, the shrapnel flying in front of her. 

Steve runs forward, throws his handgun to Bucky, and his shield connects with one of the boxes, sending it forward and hitting the man's face. Bucky shoots down another. "I had him on the ropes."

"We know you did," Diana rubs his shoulder. Behind them, another one of the men with the canons shoot at them but misses when all three jump out of the way and instead blows a hole ion the side of the locomotive. Diana landed on top of Bucky, but she helps him up as quickly as possible. "Fire again!" Bucky picks up Steve's discarded shield, firing at the man as many times as possible, but he is thrown back by a blast. He dangles on one of the bars that had held on weakly. Steve throws his shield, the agent landing on his back. Diana and Steve run to the hole, holding out their hands in a weak attempt to save him, but Diana knew, her heart knew, that he won't be able to make it. 

_'He won't make it,'_  her head kept saying.  _'He has to,'_  her heart kept repeating, protesting. Steve climbs out, trying to get closer to his best friend, Diana holding on to his suit to make sure he didn't fall, but it was loose enough to where he can move. "Grab my hand!" Steve holds out his gloved hand. "Diana would pull us back in." Bucky reached out with one hand, but the bar broke away from the wall and he fell, screaming out in fear, his legs and arms flailing. Steve's eyes collected tears, Diana screaming a loud, "NO!" She pulled Steve in despite her pain, her eyes blazing, a fire burning brightly behind them as she turned to the cabin that held Zola. An orange glow surrounded her, scaring Steve, seeing as she walked up to it threateningly, her hair flying behind her. 

"He's dead," Zola's accented voice rings out, sounding cocky. "He's dead, and it's all your fault. Only if you didn't come here to "save" the world, he wouldn't have been killed. You two could have had children, Steve would marry his beloved Peggy, and all of you would live happily ever after. But no, you all decided to come here and he was killed. Bye-bye. Gone. Dead. Goodbye." 

Diana rips open the door to his cabin, his once cocky attitude turned into frozen fear, seeing that she was angry and ready to kill him. Her eyes were brimmed with tears as she picked up a large crate, lifting it above her head. She was ready to kill him, truly torture him until he was no longer breathing, but Steve Trevor's voice rang in her mind.  _'I have to go.'_

_'I can do it,'_  her own voiced replied, making him protest against her.  _'Let me do it.'_

_"It has to be me. I can save today, you can save the world. I wish we had more time.'_

_'What? What are you saying?'_

_'I love you!'_

That was one thing Bucky was never able to say to her; a thing he would never say in the future. She takes a deep breath and sets down the crate, taking her lasso and wrapping him in it. 

"It's not about what you deserve. It's about what you believe. And I believe in love."


	11. 07. FAREWELL

EPILOGUE TO ACT ONE!

  ❝ Why let go of yesterday? Because yesterday has let go of you. ❞  

  ☾ ☾ ☾ 

**STEVE**  had made it onto the plane Schmidt was going to fly to the States to drop bombs on multiple major cities, removing his helmet before he sat down on the chair, a hole blowing air into the cabin, a map showing the course of location.  _New York City,_ not far from Brooklyn. Many would die, and if he didn't stop it, it would be his fault. He looked out the window to see a beautiful sunset and the clouds rolling beneath him, the frigid air moving his seat insignificantly. "Come in, this is Captain Rogers, do you read me?" Steve's voice comes over the comm system, all of the people's heads turning to it. "Captain Rogers, what is your. . . " Jim couldn't get it out for Peggy had pushed him lightly out of the chair, Diana straightening him up as she peered over Peggy's shoulder.

"Steve, is that you? Are you alright?" She asked in a rushed tone. 

"Peggy," Steve says, "Schmidt's dead." Diana comes closer, kneeling. "What about the plane?" The Amazon asks, Peggy's gaze turning to her as she slipped her hand in Diana's, squeezing her fingers lightly. Steve was pushing some buttons, "That's a little tougher to explain." 

"Give me your coordinates, I'll find you a safe landing site."

"There's not going to be a safe landing," Steve looks at the blueprints of the plane, seeing the red colored bombs staring back at him. Six bombs left, two gone. "But I can try and force it down." Peggy's mouth opens and closes as she thinks of what to say. "Howard," Diana immediately says. "Howard would know what to do."

"There's not enough time," Steve objects. "This thing's moving too fast and it's heading for New York. I got to put her in the water." 

"Please, don't do this, we have time, we can work it out," Peggy almost begs for him to stop his plans, which seemed both insane and selfless, but she just wanted was for Steve to continue to live and for mankind to be saved at the same time, but she could only have one. The latter would be much better than having hundreds killed for one man only  _she_  could keep. "Right now, I'm in the middle of nowhere, if I wait any longer, a lot of people are going to die," he responds. "Peggy, this is my choice." Steve puts the compass he had on the fuel gauge, the picture he kept of Peggy looking back at him. He presses the controls down, the plane tilting forward to the ground, speeding the plane closer to his death. "Peggy?"

"I'm here," she tearfully says.

"I'm gonna need a rain check on that dance."

Peggy's eyes swam in tears as she thought about the details. "All right. A week, next Saturday, at the Stork Club."

"You got it."

"8:00 on the dot, don't you dare be late. Understood?" Steve was face to face with a largely frozen wasteland, feeling the cold air seep in through the hole, his arms getting goosebumps at it. "You know, I still don't know how to dance."

"I'll show you how," she replies. "Just be there." 

"We'll have the band play something slow," tears stung Diana's eyes as she looked down at the comm, her heart breaking all over again as the thought of losing two people she cared about in two days. Steve was much closer to the ice, Diana could sense it back at the control tower. "I'd hate to step on your. . ." the audio shuts off. Peggy's eyes dart around wildly as the fact set in.

Steve was dead.

"Steve?" She whispered to the comm. "Steve?" Colonel Phillips' head bowed, Diana hugged her friend closer, hugging her tightly for comfort, feeling Peggy's tears run down her neck. Diana's own tears brushed down her own face.

_Steve and Bucky were dead._


	12. ACT TWO

「 act two.  ❝ way down we go. ❞ 」 

 

  ❝  _You let your feet run wild. Time has come as we all oh, go down. Yeah, but for the fall, oh my, do you dare look him right in the eyes?_  ❞ 

 

  ❝ To be human is to love, even when it gets too much, you're not ready to give up. ❞ 

 

   ❝ I tried to hold these secrets inside me, my mind's like a deadly disease. ❞  

 

**TABLE OF CONTENTS**

08\. "ON YOUR LEFT."

09\. ASSASSINATION

10\. ?


	13. 08. "ON YOUR LEFT."

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Listen to this as you read: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=evypdgY6KpQ

   ❝ Not a perfect soldier, but a good man. ❞

  ☾☆☽

 **IT**  was early morning in Washington D.C., a dark-skinned man doing his daily run around the Washington Monument, the beautiful purple, blue and pink sky shining down on him and the water glistened with its rich colors. Steve runs up beside him, running faster than the man was. "On your left," he says as he passes him, the strange man's head following him. Sam, the stranger, was now on the other side of the Monument, by the Lincoln Memorial, when Steve is right behind him. "On your left," Steve passes him.

"Uh-huh, on my left, got it," Sam replies. By a large marble building, Sam was running around another side, Steve right behind him, footsteps lighter and faster. "Don't say it. Don't you say it."

"On your left," Steve says again.

"Come on!" Sam groans. He stops gradually as soon as he commences defeat. He was sitting down by a tree, hand on his stomach, sweat lining the edges of his sweatshirt when he hears a voice above him. "Need a medic?" It was Steve, being a bit cocky. "I need a new set of lungs," he replies, staring up at the tall blonde man. "Dude, you just ran like thirteen miles in thirty minutes."

"Guess I got a late start," Steve shrugs, looking around with his azure eyes, chest heaving. "Huh, really?" Sam chuckles. "You should be ashamed of yourself. You should take another lap. Did you just take it? I assume you just took it."

"What unit were you with?" Steve notices the Military emblem on Sam's sweater. "58th Pararescue," he answers. "But now I'm working down at the VA." He points over his shoulder. "Sam Wilson." He puts his hand up, Steve grabbing onto it and pulling him up, "Steve Rogers."

"I kind of put that together," Sam responds. "Must've freaked you out, coming home after the whole  _'defrosting'_  thing."

"Takes some getting used to," Steve says with a sigh. "But I had Diana there and it was all good."

"Diana? Is she an old friend?"

"Yeah, we both fought in World War II together. I'm glad she's still alive," Steve shrugs. "It's good to meet you, Sam." Steve goes to walk away, but Sam follows him a little. "It's your bed, right?" Steve turns around, "What's that?" "Your bed, it's too soft," Sam explains. "When I was over there, I'd sleep on the ground, use rocks for pillows, like a caveman. Now I'm home, lying in my bed, and it's like ―"

"Lying on a marshmallow," Steve adds. "Feel like I'm going to sink right to the floor. Diana has told me to get one of those Tempur-Pedic beds where you can adjust the bed comfort level, but I don't think I would know how to use it. How long?"

"Two tours," Sam answers, nodding his head to the ground, Steve staring him in the eyes as he had been taught to as a kid. "You must miss the good old days, huh?" "Well," Steve shrugs again, "things aren't so bad. Food's a lot better; we used to boil everything. No polio's good, internet ― so helpful. Been reading that a lot, trying to catch up." Sam gets a suggestion, "Marvin Gaye. 1972. Troubleman soundtrack. Everything you missed, jammed into one album." Steve pulls out a small notepad and writes down the proposal, many others on it, most of which are from Diana. "I'll put it on the list."

_'Thai food.' (Diana.)_

_'Star Wars.' (Diana and the rest.)_

_'Nirvana.' (Tony.)_

_'Rocky.' (Diana (who got it from a friend of hers.))_

_'Troubleman soundtrack.' (Sam Wilson.)_

Steve's phone rings a bit, shaking in his pocket, and he looks at the message on it.  _'Mission Alert. Extraction Imminent. Meet at the curb. :)'_. "Alright, Sam. Duty calls. Thanks for the run. . . if that's what you want to call 'running'". They shake hands, "Oh, that's how it is?" Steve chuckles, "Oh, that's how it is."

"Okay," Sam replies. "Any time you want to stop by the VA, make me look awesome in front of the girl at the front desk, just let me know." Steve nods, "I'll keep it in mind." Natasha pulls up in her Corvette Stingray, Diana squeezed into the back, checking any messages from Fury, but none were at hand. "Hey, fellas," Natasha says as she rolls down the window. "Either one of you knows where the Smithsonian is? I'm here to pick up a fossil." Diana shakes her head, letting out a laugh. Steve walks to the car, "That's hilarious." Sam bends down, seeing the dark-haired woman in the back and the smaller red-haired woman in the front. "How you doing?"

"Hey," Natasha says.

"Can't run everywhere."

"No, you can't." They drive off.

 

    ☾☆☽  

 **STEVE**  jumps onto the ship stealthily, his feet not making any noise as he crouched behind two  _HYDRA_  agents, walking in the darkness of the night, grabbing hold of a man's neck, quietly choking him to death. Diana was somewhere on the other side of the boat, sliting the throat of another, blood splattering all over the wood paneling of the ground. Steve slowly places the dead man on the ground, running to another point of the ship, throwing his shield at a man that stood in front of him, sliding across the slick floors and spreads out a leg, the man falling on his back, Steve grabbing his shield as soon as he stands up. He throws it again at the man he kicked down, bouncing it off his chest, and catches it, beginning to run to another point of the ship. 

Diana runs beside him, her red, gold and blue armor shining in the moon's ray, but as well as the ship's yellow light, Steve propelling a man off the side of a boat as the Amazon uses her sword to sever a man's leg, making him scream, and she puts an end to his misery by using the toe of her boot to kick his chin. Another came toward Steve, who just gets to the ground and uses the whole extent of his leg to make him fall, Diana using her shield to strike a man with the rounded surface of it. They both run to the other side of the ship, running along the whole length of it, Steve using his arm to strike a man over the edge, Diana throwing her sword to kill another, Steve kicking a man into a wall as soon as they get near them.

Diana grabs her sword, and when she sees the man Steve kicked into the wall reaching for the fire alarm, she swings it, hacking off his hand, making him scream in pain. Steve kicks him before it could raise any alarm to others. The jump over a ledge, landing on their feet, using their shields to hit as many opponents as they can. They both knew that, despite the way they wanted a normal life, they both belonged in war. That was what they were made for. Steve kicks another into a stack of metal containers, Diana using her lasso to grab onto one and bring him over to her, jumping into the air and kicking him hard, letting him fly over the edge. She jumps to the ground, sliding along her gauntlets, the bottom of her boot connecting with a man's stomach, and she again slides to another and does the same. Steve flips in the air, throwing his shield at a man that tried to kill them, grabbing the one nearest to him and forcing his head down on his thigh. Diana cuts through the clothing a person had, seeing his intestines falling to the ground in a heap, the crimson color being the same red she wore. 

A man tells them to stop moving, a rifle pointed at them, Rumlow shooting him down easily as he floats onto the ship. "Took you long enough," Diana says to him. He shrugs, "Most of us aren't supersoldiers like both of you." 

"I'm not a soldier," Diana shakes her head. "I never was." 

"Thanks," Steve tells Rumlow, the dark-haired man taking off his parachute. "Yeah, you seemed pretty helpless without me," Diana rolls her eyes at him, turning her back to both of the men. She didn't like Rumlow; something in her stomach told him he wasn't working for them, but instead working as a spy for another group. She knew she had to trust her instincts, but Steve or any other  _S.H.I.E.L.D_  agent might not even believe her, but she knew they might. Afterall, she told nothing but the truth. Other S.H.I.E.L.D agents dropped down, including Natasha, their black clothing making them blend in with the night, Steve placing his shield on his back. 

He, Diana, and Natasha walk in the same direction as the other men walk somewhere else. "What about the nurse that lives across the hall from you?" Natasha asks Steve as she removes her parachute. "She seems kind of nice." Steve ignores her comment, "Secure the engine room, then find me a date." Natasha jumps over a ledge. "I'm multi-tasking." 

"I have a bullet for someone," one of the captors walk around the hostages, waving his rifle around. "Huh? You want a bullet in your head?" He points his gun at an innocent person, kicking his foot out of the way. "Move that foot? You want a bullet in your head?" 

Steve and Diana run across the ship, their footsteps matching, Steve using different poles to thrust himself up as Diana just took a giant leap and lands safely on her feet, Steve's head popping from the edge. "I have to learn how to do that," he huffs lightly, Diana giving him a chuckle. He shoots something at a window that just sticks, two men talking inside with a weird language. "Hey, sailor," Natasha says seductively to a man that was talking on the phone for the shortest amount of time, leaving him shocked before she kicks him in the leg, using that as an advantage to use one of her ropes to sling it around his neck. She throws him close to the ledge, using his body as an anchor as she jumps over him, her red pin-straight hair flying as her guns were drawn, ready to fire. She kills one man that stood on the ground below her, hiding behind his body as she kills another two below. 

Shouting from outside causes the leader to tell him to shut up, asking him if he wanted to be a hero. He knocks on a blue door, telling the man behind it to find a man called Batroc, and if he doesn't hear anything in the next two minutes, he'll start killing hostages. The man behind it agrees. Rumlow uses a wand to stun the man, catching his body before he falls to the ground with a thump. The leader looks over his shoulder, feeling that something might not be right, but dismisses the feeling and continues walking away. Two minutes.

 _S.H.I.E.L.D_  agents jump over the side of the ship, using belts and ropes to make sure they didn't fall into the water, carrying their rifles as they look into the windows, their faces are hidden from view. "Don't you sometimes get a weird feeling from Rumlow?" Diana asks Steve quietly. He shakes his head, "No, not at all." Jack Rollins places a bag on the floor, Rumlow keeping watch as the  _STRIKE_  member begins to set it up, placing a disk on the door, arms reaching out of it and latching onto the door. "Natasha, what's your status?" Steve asks into the comm. No reply. "Natasha. Status." 

"Hang on!" Was his only reply before Natasha jumps onto a man's shoulders, using her Black Widow Bites to shock him. She rolls on her back, grabbing onto another's forearm, kicking him up his leg and snapping his arm, kicking his stomach and dropping, her leg swiping his from under him. When she begins to rise, she extends her leg, propelling the rifle one carried onto the floor, grabbing onto his neck and using her body weight to throw him to the ground. She jumps up. "Engine room secure." She grabs a metal rod and strikes a man's head with it. 

 _Now_  it was definitely secure.


	14. 09. ASSASSINATION

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Listen to this as you read: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HVJGh51wR7k

**That one part on 0:15 to 0:30 on the theme, it's AMAZING! It's like a distant cry, the cry of his memories that he can't seem to remember. Hauntingly beautiful.**

  ❝ What will the Devil do that hasn't been done before? ❞  

☾☆☽

**STEVE**  had heard something from inside his apartment, the sound of his record player playing the old 1940's music Diana had saved for him over the years, and he climbed in through his window quietly, different books about presidents and history to his right, a picture of him, Bucky, Diana, and a man named Logan Howlett wearing a helmet and a cigar dangling from his lip was to his left. He grabbed his shield from the floor, hooking the straps onto his arm, and, very slowly and quietly, leans against a wall as he begins to look around the corner. Nick Fury looks at him with his one good eye. Steve relaxes and puts most of his body weight on his left leg, his left arm brushing against the wall softly. "I don't remember giving you a key," he tells his boss, glancing at his feet. 

Nick grunts softly as he straightens up on the chair he laid in, "You really think I need one?" His phone was in his hand, the silver polish of it gleaming brightly in the air. "My wife kicked me out." This came as a shock to Steve; Nick had a wife?

"Didn't know you were married," Steve responds, looking at him as Nick's head moves from side-to-side. "A lot of things you don't know about me," Nick retorts, Steve rounding the corner and reaching for the light switch. "I know, Nick. That's the problem." He turns on the light, but Nick just holds up a hand before reaching for the light next to him, tugging at the string and letting the darkness consume him. He begins typing something on his phone, Steve raising his eyebrows in confusion. 

_Ears everywhere._

Steve understands, but he continues to play at the small game that Nick was playing at. "I'm sorry to have to do this, but I had no place else to crash," Nick apologizes, and Steve could clearly see the sweat that lined his eyebrow and soaked his face, Nick turning his phone with a new message:

_Shield compromised._

"Who else knows about your wife?" Steve asks, seeing Nick stand up, grunting at the effort of it, holding out his phone, holding onto his arm. "Just my friends."

_You and me._

"Is that what we are?" Steve asks the Director of S.H.I.E.L.D., Nick nodding at him. "That's up to you," Nick responds. A bullet rips through the wall, puncturing Nick's back, sending him to the floor with a cry of pain. Steve rushes over, seeing multiple bullets make their mark inside Nick's chest, finding their homes, Steve using the man's trenchcoat to pull him over to a safer spot. Nick was letting out groans of pain, his crimson blood staining the floors, a flash of metal on the apartment roof catching Steve's attention. Nick holds on to Steve's arm as he breathes deeply. When he slowly lets go, a flash drive is sitting on his palm. Steve takes it, "Don't. . .  trust. . . anyone." 

A banging at the door alarms them, Steve's head turning towards it, and when he peeks through the slits on his bookshelf, the nurse from across the hall is holding up a gun, Diana was standing beside her with her sword and shield raised. "Captain Rogers?" The nurse was formal, but Diana just called out his real name. "Steve?" 

"Captain, I'm Agent 13 of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s Special Service," the nurse introduces herself, Steve not even relaxing, Diana had the same reaction as him, her eyes wide, on alert, as she rounds the corner to where Steve hid. She looked down and sees Nick's fallen body, an audible gasp falling from her lips as she stares down at him. "Kate?" Steve asks as the blonde woman turns. "I was assigned to protect you," she just says. "On whose order?" Steve questions. Agent 13 looks and sees Nick, nodding towards the dark-skinned man, "His." She drops her gun as she falls to her knees, pressing her hands on the Director's neck, feeling a very faint pulse pounce rhythmically against her fingertips. She takes out a walkie-talkie, "Foxtrot is down, he's unresponsive. I need E.M.T.'s." Diana settles down beside the boss, placing her arms behind his back gingerly, the person on the other side replying, asking if they've got eyes on the shooter. Steve turns at this message, seeing the flash of vibrant metal on the roof, getting smaller as the person who owns it runs away. "Tell him I'm in pursuit," Steve says to the S.H.I.E.L.D. agent, and when Diana picks up a moaning Nick, he uses his shield to protect his face from the shards of glass as he runs through his window, breaking into another window in the office building across from his home. 

He rolls on the ground and runs along the halls, keeping watch for the man that shot down Nick, breaking down a door, the wood flying everywhere. He's breaking through doors and walls, not caring for the damage he's creating, and as soon as he turns right, he has too much velocity and creates a large, dome-shaped indent on the wall, but he has too much adrenaline to care; he just wants to catch Nick's assassin. 

He sees the man drop down from the floor above him and roll. Steve jumps through the window and lands on his shield, quickly standing up and throwing his shield at the opponent. At the edge of the roof, the man just catches it easily, with what looked to be a metal arm. Dark makeup around his eyes made the steel-blue color much more vibrant yet menacing, his long, dark hair fluttering in the wind as he glared at the blonde. The bottom half of his face was covered by a mas, protecting his identity, making Steve wonder who he was. He lowers the shield, and, with a snap of his arm, throws it back into the blonde's stomach. Steve hunches over it, groaning in pain, and as soon as he looks back up, the man was already gone. No trace left. Running to the edge, Steve looks over it, but the man was gone.

Like a ghost, he was never to be seen.


	15. 10. "YOU'RE A TERRIBLE LIAR."

❝ What will the Devil do that hasn't been done before? ❞

☾☆☽

**NATASHA**  rolled up to the hospital in her black Corvette, police surrounding the place, their red and blue lights flicking everywhere, a blinding realization to her that everything that has happened is real. She climbs out of the car without even turning it off, walking through the many doors of the hospital to get to the room Nick Fury was getting his surgery done, stepping beside Steve and Daina. She sees her long-time friend on the gurney, a cap on his head, many doctors and nurses standing around him, doing their jobs. Diana places a hand on the shorter, red-headed woman's shoulder, and Natasha turns to see the Amazon standing in all black. 

It made everything crash down onto her.

"Is he going to make it?" Her voice breaks the silence, her blue eyes staring down at all the blood being shed as the surgeons stitch him back up. "I don't know," Steve answers truthfully, shrugging.

"Tell me about the shooter."

"He's fast," Steve replies. "Strong. Had a metal arm." Memories come back to Natasha, Agent Hill's shoes announcing her arrival. "Ballistics?" Natasha asks, Maria shaking her head, Diana bowing hers. "Three slugs, no rifling," Maria reports. "Completely untraceable." 

"Soviet-made," Diana and Natasha echo, both of them continuing to watch the surgery as Steve looks down at his feet. They all felt horrible; they had to protect the world yet they couldn't even protect one man. The sound of a flat-line resonates, doctors rushing around, trying to find different things to save Nick's life. They called for the defibrillator, Natasha feeling horror rush through her veins at the thought of one of her greatest friend's death. 'Don't do this to me, Nick," she whispers to herself. They count down and shock him, some nurses raising their hands, others trying to find things, but no pulse was shown on the monitor. 200 volts of electricity is shot through Nick, the drug Epinephrine called into the scene. No pulse. 

_Time of death: 1:03 a.m._

Steve and Maria leave, but Diana continues to stay with Natasha, hugging her close to her body with her right arm, Natasha leaning into the warmth of the taller woman's figure. Steve looks down at the flash drive in his hand, wondering what to do with it. He watches Natasha stand over Nick, arms crossed over her chest, trying hard not to break down. "I need to take him," Maria stands beside him. Steve walks up to his friend, "Natasha." She places her hand on Fury's forehead in a silent goodbye, the sniffles of Maria are the only thing they could hear, both of them walking out of the room, Natasha walking fast. "Natasha!" The agent turns around quickly, glaring at the blonde before her. "Why was Fury in your apartment?" 

Steve shrugs, "I don't know." Rumlow marches closer, "Cap, they want you back at _S.H.I.E.L.D._ " Steve nods, going back to face Natasha, "Yeah, give me a second." 

"They want you now."

"Okay."

"You're a terrible liar," Natasha marches off. 

 

☾☆☽

**STEVE**  had finished talking to Alexander Pierce about Nick Fury, Pierce telling him about one of their old battle stories, about how Nick refused to go with the command he was given and went ahead and had a tact team go underneath the unit that was already there. He was waiting for the elevator to come up to take him down, arms crossed as he watched out at D.C. The sleek doors opened, the Captain walking inside, "Operations Control." His head was bowed as the thought of Fury being dead consumed him, the female voice replying that he was confirmed and the metal and glass box began to close its doors, but Rumlow ran his hand between the metal, talking to other colleagues about a new mission. "Personnel on site," he said, staring at the back of Steve's head. "Forensics. Captain."

Steve turns his head at the mention of his authority. "Rumlow," he turns his whole body around, being polite yet a bit stern. The doors finally close, the  _STRIKE_  team hanging out by the left side of the elevator in some form of weird way. "Evidence Response found some fibers on the roof they want us to see," Rumlow says. "Want me to get the tact team ready?" 

"No, let's wait and see what it is first," Steve replies. 

"Right," Rumlow turns around. The supersoldier notices that one of the men had his hand on his handgun, pacing around nervously, but Steve says nothing of it. The elevator comes to a halt, four men in suits talking, walking in with briefcases, "Administrations level." Rumlow looks at them over his shoulder, the men filing in as the doors closed, "Excuse me." Steve nods and moves out of the way, walking closer to the metal that had enclosed them inside the glass box. "Sorry about what happened with Fury," Rumlow says to him. "Messed up, what happened to him."

"Thank you," Steve's blonde head nods once, looking to his left. The dark-skinned man was sweating, perspiration running down the side of his face, the elevator stopping once more to allow more men to get in; three more passengers, unlikely on the _S.H.I.E.L.D._ base at this hour. "Records." Steve looks around and realizes what it was: men were trying to capture him. "Before we get started," he speaks up, breaking the rigid silence between all of them, "does anyone want to get out?" Jack Rollins presses a button on the side of a strengthened baton, flashes of blue electricity rolling through it, raising his arm to hit Steve with it. He blocks the attack but gets grabbed by two men, Rumlow hitting the emergency stop button, more men grabbing the super-soldier to hold him back into the wall, Steve grunting as he tried to force them off. A magnetized cuff was placed on his wrist, three men pushing it towards the metal parts of the wall above them, Steve holding it back, and he suddenly pulls it away, kicking someone in the shin and using his elbow to force it up into the dark-skinned man's nose. The cuff sticks to a wall, Steve using his feet to kick men nearest to him, using his free arms to strike another into the glass, cracking it. 

His head is trapped between a man's forearm and bicep, but he brings back his head hard to slam it into his face, grabbing on to his arm and throwing him unto the ground. Rumlow kicks Steve's arm so the magnetic cuff gets stuck to the wall, using the baton to shock Stev's back. Steve is enduring the pain, wondering how Diana and Thor just be alright with it, but he soon brings his elbow to Rumlow's cheek, throwing an Asian-American man into the camera to the right. When someone comes near him with the baton, he grabs onto his wrist and forces it into an enemy's chest, jumping into the air, using the cuff as a helping hand to kick both of them in the chest.

 It was just Rumlow and three strangers. 

One stranger was easy; Steve just had to kick him into the glass. Steve jumps up onto the wall, using his arms and legs to force the wristband off of the metal, and when he pushes off, he lands on both feet, using a joint to knock one of the men out, punching another one in the stomach, keeling to the ground in pain. "Whoa, big guy," Rumlow says as he stands up, two batons in his fists, Steve's chest heaving with each breath, glaring at Rumlow.  _HYDRA_  agents. "I just want you to know, Cap, this isn't personal!"

Rumlow attacks, Steve blocking a punch, but Rumlow goes for his stomach with his free hand and shocks the super-soldier. Steve swings his arm again but gets another shock to the stomach. He forces his hand into Rumlow's cheek, throwing the dark-haired man into the ceiling, crashing everything. "It kind of feels personal," he replies. He brings his foot down on the edge of his shield, the circular object flying up and, as easy as making pancakes for breakfast, Steve hooks his arm into the loops. He breaks off the cuff with the edge, pressing the red-lit button on the screen, a  _S.H.I.E.L.D._  squad team pointing their rifles at his chest. "Drop your shield and put your hands in the air!" Steve turns and cuts off the wire that held the elevator up, feeling the wind rush up as the contraption fell, but it wasn't too long before the emergency breaks emerged, slowing down the elevator into a halt. Stuck in between two floors, Steve had no choice but to go for the upper level due to his height, pushing open the doors to that one floor to face more men coming his way. 

With a soft groan, he closes them again, looking over the window to his right, seeing the shimmering glass from the building multiple stories down.

He had no other choice.

"Give it up, Rogers, get that door open! You've got nowhere to go!" He walks to the wall farthest from the window, and, with a running start, he jumps out, crashing through the tempered glass, shield facing down as he hurled through the afternoon sun, breaking through the glass below, a woman screaming as he lands on his choice of weapon. He groans at the impact, getting up slowly. 

He runs off, not wanting to do that again, but he knew that he had to; it was his job. Let them come for him. Let them try. 


	16. 11. GHOST STORY

  ❝ But what the world hasn't realized is that the villain is just a victim whose story hasn't been told. ❞  

  ☾☆☽  

**STEVE**  walks through the hospital with his hoodie up, hands inside the pockets, head bowed as he tried to keep his identity away from the other hospital staff. He walked up to the vending machine that he had placed the flash drive in, and, with a heavy sigh, he couldn't seem to find it; it was gone. A flash of pink and a soft popping noise made him turn around to see both Natasha and Diana standing behind him, the Amazon staring at her nails as Natasha continued to chew her bubble gum. Steve grabs onto both of their biceps, squeezing as he took them into a free room. 

He pushes them into the wall and throws off his hoodie, angry eyes staring at the two women. "Where is it?" 

"Where is what?" 

"Safe," Natasha and Steve ignore her question as they glare at each other; Diana takes this as a notice that she wasn't needed so she begins to wander away, but Steve forces her back to the wall. She lets out an audible sigh, rolling her dark eyes. "A flash drive," Steve notifies her quickly. "Do better!" He growls at Natasha.

"Where did you get it?"

"Why would I tell you?"

"Fury gave it to you," Natasha now knows about him. "Why?" 

"What's on it?" 

"I don't know," Natasha shrugs, Steve shakes her lightly; though he was furious, he still cared for his friend's safety. "Stop lying," he demands, but Natasha doesn't waiver, she just throws back a sarcastic, but true, comment. "I only act like I know everything, Rogers." Steve looks towards the door, making sure no one was near it, and Diana decides to stand guard as they talked, clearly knowing that since she didn't know what was on the flash drive, it had nothing to do with her. "I bet you knew Fury hired the pirates, didn't you?" Diana's eyebrows furrowed, something clearly troubling her, something from what was said about Fury. "Well, it makes sense; the ship was dirty, Fury needed a way in and so did you."

"I'm not going to ask you again."

"I know who killed Fury," Natasha says, making Diana perk up. "Most of the intelligence community doesn't believe he exists, the ones who do call him the Winter Soldier. He's credited with over two dozen assassinations in the last fifty years."

"So he's a ghost story," Steve remarks.

"Five years ago I was escorting a nuclear engineer out of Iran, somebody shot out my tires near Odessa," Natasha recalls one of her missions. "We lost control, went straight over a cliff, I pulled us out, but the Winter Soldier was there. I was covering my engineer, so he shot him straight through me." She lifts up the bottom left corner of her shirt, letting the two people in front of her see the almost quarter-sized scar on her stomach. "Soviet slug, no rifling. Bye-bye bikinis." Steve is silent for a moment, thinking of what to say, but he decides to make a comment from her last sentence, "Yeah, I bet you look terrible in them now." There was a hint of a smile from Natasha.

"You said it was a Soviet slug?" Diana pipes up, making Steve and Diana look at her. Natasha nods, eyebrows furrowed. "If it is a Soviet slug, and you say the Winter Soldier was there, it could've possibly been ━"

_"HYDRA,"_  Steve finishes, looking down at his feet, thinking over what Diana said. The Winter Soldier was credited for over two dozen assassinations over the past fifty years, Soviet-made weapons, metal arm, and faster and stronger than a normal man. The face behind the Winter Soldier was just a regular man that had been experimented on without consent, and now he was forced to do all these things; it was something  _HYDRA_  would do. "Well, let's see what the ghost wants." 

 

   ☾☆☽  

**STEVE,**  Natasha, and Diana were inside an Apple store in a mall, using one of their computers to hack into the flash drive they had. At first, Steve was confused at why they were going into a public place, but soon realized that it was better; more people around them meant that the HYDRA agents were going to become frustrated at where they went. "The drive has a Level Six homing program, so as soon as we boot up S.H.I.E.L.D will know exactly where we are," Natasha informs them, typing something on the computer. "How much time do we have?" Diana asks. "Um. . . nine minutes from. . ." Natasha puts in the flash drive, "now." A blue screen with writing on it shows up, Steve noticing that it looked like it came out of a spy movie. "Fury was right about that ship, somebody's trying to hide something. This drive is protected by some sort of AI, it keeps rewriting itself to counter my commands." 

"Can you override it?"

"The person who developed this is slightly smarter than me," Natasha sasses. "Slightly." Rumlow and his team ride up to the mall, the tires to their large black Chevy SUV's screeching as they halt, all of them stepping out into the bright sunlight. Back in the store, Natasha was still trying to hack into the drive. "I'm gonna try running a tracer. This is a program that  _S.H.I.E.L.D_ developed to track hostile malware, so if we can't read the file, maybe we can find out where it came from." 

"Can I help you with anything?" An employee walks up to them, his long blonde hair moving smoothly. 

"Oh, no," Natasha places a hand on Steve's chest. "My fiance was just helping me find some honeymoon destinations." Steve catches on to her lie and tries to slant as well, but it was slightly harder for him. "Right!" He nods. "We're getting married." The employee's eyes wander to Diana, his eyebrows furrowed as he took in her figure. "And you are the. . . mistress, I believe?" Diana shakes her head, a warm smile spreading across her lips as she replies, "No, I'm just the best friend that throws suggestions." 

"Congratulations, then!" The employee smiles. "Where do you guys think you're going?" Diana answers it quickly, "New Jersey." The worker nods and begins staring at Steve, looking into his eyes as the supersoldier becomes uncomfortable. After a while of awkward silence, he speaks up. "I have the exact same glasses." 

"Wow, you guys are practically twins," Natasha says from her spot at the computer.

"Yeah, I wish," the worker gestures towards Steve with his hands. "Specimen. Uh. . . if you guys need anything, I've been Aaron."

"Thank you," Steve replies respectfully, turning back to Natasha. "You said nine minutes, come on."

"Sh, relax," the agent waves him away. "Got it." They get a signal from Wheaton, New Jersey. "You know it?" She notices Steve's head comes closer to the screen, Diana breaking from her moment of guarding to listen in. "Diana and I used to. Let's go." He pulls the drive from the computer and puts it in his pocket, the three walking out of the store as coolly as possible, Diana lowering her hat as they walk through the mass of people. "Standard tac-team. Two behind, to across, two coming straight at us. If they make us, I'll engage, you hit the south escalator to the metro." 

"Shut up and put your arm around me," Natasha orders. "Laugh at something I said." 

"What?"

"Do it," Steve complies and does so as two agents walk past them, Diana pretending to be looking at something on her phone. An agent looks around the Apple store and sees no sign of Diana, Steve, or Natasha, "Negative at the source." Rumlow listens to the message and finally replies, "Give me a floor rundown."

"Negative on three."

"Negative on two," Rumlow goes to the escalator the three  _HYDRA_ criminals walked onto, "Snake the upper levels, work down to me." As the three are going down, Natasha spots Rumlow coming up, and, with a quick thought, she turns around to Steve and orders, "Kiss me." 

"What?"

"Public displays of affection make people very uncomfortable."

"Yeah," Natasha takes an annoyed breath out and, with a roll of her eyes, Diana grabs onto the woman's head and forces her lips up to hers, kissing the woman with such a ferocious fever that Natasha believed that Diana was more lesbian than straight. . . not that Natasha complained. Steve hides behind his hat and both Diana's and Natasha's mingling hair, some men on the escalator taking pictures of the two women while Rumlow looked away. "You still uncomfortable?" Natasha asks as soon as she pulls away, seeing Brock Rumlow's jacket sweep past a group of women that were behind them. "Not the word I would use," Diana smiles and makes her way down the moving steps. 

 

☾☆☽  

**STEVE** drives the vehicle they stole, a blue Chevy truck, Natasha resting her feet on the dashboard as Diana sat in the back, staring out the window. They all have driven past a blue sign that read  **'Welcome to NEW JERSEY** _The Garden State',_  the blur of green trees rolling past them smoothly, "Where did Captain America learn how to steal a car?" 

"Nazi Germany," Steve makes himself a little more comfortable on the seat. "And we're borrowing, take your feet off the dash." With a small smile, Natasha places her feet back on the floor of the cabin, a question popping into her head. "Alright, I have a question for you, oh, which you do not have to answer. I feel like if you don't answer it though, you're kind of answering it, you know?"

"What?"

"Why didn't you want to kiss me?" Natasha asks, but instead of looking defeated, her eyes seemed happy. "Diana did so without a problem." 

"That's because Diana lived on an island with women," Steve answers. "And, I'm still a bit nervous about kissing a woman, but before you ask, I didn't just have one kiss, I'm ninety-five, not dead." Natasha's head turns towards the window. "Nobody special, though?" 

"Believe it or not, it's kind of hard to find someone with shared life experience."

"Well, that's alright, you just make it up," Natasha shrugs. 

"What, like you?" 

"I don't know," Natasha shrugs again. "The truth is a matter of circumstances, it's not all things to all people all the time. And neither am I." 

"That's a tough way to live."

"A good way not to die, though." 

"You know, it's kind of hard to trust someone when you don't know who that someone really is," this comment makes Natasha look back at Diana, who wasn't paying attention to them, just leaning her head on her hand and staring out at the foliage. "Like some people," she whispers. "And what do you want me to be?"

"A friend?" This makes Natasha laugh softly. "There's a chance you might be in the wrong business, Rogers." 


	17. 12. CAMP LEIGH

  ❝ A warrior woman looks at a challenge straight in the eye and winks. ❞  

  ☾☆☽  

**DIANA,**  Natasha, and Steve all made it into one of Camp Leigh's ammunition storage units, Natasha using one of her phones ━ the one that was regulated by  _S.H.I.E.L.D._ and built by Tony Stark ━ to crack the pin number they needed to get into the large room that hid an elevator in it. They made it down into a large room where an old computer sat, many large motherboards surrounding it, "This can't be the data-point, this technology is ancient." Natasha notices a flash drive port, glowing blue and appearing as if someone had put it there just yesterday.

_"Initiate system?"_ The large computer asks, the same words popping up on the screen with green lettering. Natasha walks up to it and begins typing on the keyboard, "Y-E-S, spells yes." She smiles as the computer begins to start up. "Shall we play a game?" She turns to Steve, "It's from a movie that ━"

"Yeah, I saw it," the older blonde replies, holding up his hand to stop her. An accented voice speaks from the computer, a blurry, green image of what looked to be Arnim Zola shows up on the screen, a camera placed on top of the machinery moving around, training its single eye on Diana. "Prince, Diana. Date of birth unknown. Rogers, Steven. Born 1918. Romanoff, Natalia Alianovna. Born 1984." 

"It's some kind of recording."

"I am not a recording, Fräulein," the computer snaps. "I may not be the man I was when the Captain and the Wonder took me prisoner in 1945, but I am." The picture of Doctor Zola clears up, all of the furrowing their eyebrows, though for Natasha it was pure confusion, nodding towards the machinery. "You know this thing?" Steve answers as he walks around the thing, "Arnim Zola was a German scientist that worked for the Red Skull," Diana grimaces at his name, Bucky popping up in her head. "He's been dead for years."

"First correction," Zola says, "I am Swiss. Second, look around you. I have never been more alive. In 1972 I received a terminal diagnosis. Science could not save my body, my mind, however,  _that_ was worth saving on two hundred thousand feet of data banks. You are standing in my brain." 

"How did you get here?" Steve steps up beside Diana.

"Came here during Operation Paperclip after the war," Diana explains. "Though I told them it was a horrible idea, they still did not listen to me, telling me that he was good now. . . then. . . I forget which one to use now. Anyways,  _HYDRA_  grew again under their noses, making me leave  _S.H.I.EL.D._  Or, at least, until you came back." She crosses her arms over her chest and glares at the screen, Steve watching her carefully, processing her information. He nods slowly, turning back to the computer as it begins to talk. "They thought I could help their cause," Zola adds. "I also helped my own." 

_"HYDRA_ died with the Red Skull," Steve states, not wanting to accept that  _HYDRA_  was growing underneath  _S.H.I.E.L.D.'s_ noses. "Cut off one head,"  _HYDRA's_  symbol glows green on the screen, switching quickly to Zola's head getting another replica. "And two more shall take its place." 

"Prove it."

"Accessing archive," the computer screen shows them old footage of the Red Skull and the original  _S.H.I.E.L.D._  founders, Diana among them, wearing the same grey dress Steve saw her in while he got his current shield. " _HYDRA_  was founded on the belief that humanity could not be trusted with its own freedom. What we did not realize, was that if you try to take that freedom, they resist. The war taught us much. Humanity needed to surrender its freedom willingly. After the war,  _S.H.I.E.L.D._ was founded and I was recruited. The new  _HYDRA_  grew. A beautiful parasite inside  _S.H.I.E.L.D_. For seventy years HYDRA has been secretly feeding crisis, reaping war. And when history did not cooperate, history was changed." Footage of Steve leading men into battle was displayed, a crash through a building window showing that Diana had thrown a man out of the second story into a stack of wood. Another crash and Diana was running on the roof. A small clip of Diana sliding across a floor on her shield while wielding her sword and her legs behind her to kick down a man followed closely after. 

"That's impossible," Natasha says, shaking her head. "S.H.I.E.L.D. would've stopped you," Diana finishes, stepping up to the computer. A photograph of a newspaper clipping of Howard and Maria Stark's deaths shows up on the screen, "Accidents will happen." Diana remembered that day. December 16, 1991. They were on their way to the Pentagon before going on vacation, and the person named the Winter Soldier had killed them. Another photo of Fury's recent death comes up, making Natasha gasp. "HYDRA created a world so chaotic that humanity is finally ready to sacrifice its freedom to gain its security. Once the purification process is complete, HYDRA's new world order will arise. We won, Captain. Your death amounts to the same as your Life; a zero sum." In anger, Steve punches the screen, breaking it into a million little pieces. "As I was saying. . ." 

"What's on this drive?" Steve asks, nodding towards the flash drive, Zola's face coming up on a much smaller screen to their right. "Project Insight requires insight," the scientist answers. "So I wrote an algorithm." 

"What kind of algorithm?" Natasha asks. "What does it do?" 

"The answer to your question is quite fascinating, unfortunately, you shall be too dead to hear it," the doors behind them begin to close, Steve throwing his shield to stop it, but it was too late, they shut as soon as his choice of weapon hit the metal, "Steve, we got a bogey. Short-range ballistic. 30 seconds tops." 

"Who fired it?" 

Natasha checks her phone again to answer, but Diana already knows; they accessed a top-secret file that the people they worked for didn't want them to know about. "S.H.I.E.L.D.," the Amazonian woman answers, looking around for an escape. "I am afraid I have been stalling, Captain. Admit it, it's better this way. We're both of us. . . out of time." Steve is quick to notice a small opening in the ground, throwing open the metal door aside, and just as grated metal hits the floor, the bomb hits, Steve grabbing both of the women and throwing them into the hole, following close after. He raises his shield to protect them, rubble closing in on the group. After the destruction, he picks his way out ━ Diana helping him, carrying an unconscious Natasha on her back ━ just as the  _STRIKE_  team begins to search the area. They all run off to safety as Rumlow notices a footprint on the ground.

"Call in the asset." 


	18. 13. "CALL IT A RESUME."

  ❝ I never said  _pilot._  ❞  

  ☾☆☽ 

**STEVE** , Diana, and Natasha are all tired and dirty as they reach the home of Sam Wilson, the man Steve had met at the park a few days before. The dark-skinned man was home from his morning run, trying to drink some orange juice when his door is knocked on. He puts down the carton and walks over, opening it to see the trio he saw the other day. "Hey, man," he said, looking down at the three of them, seeing that the redheaded woman had looked like she went through Hell and the dark-haired woman looked abashed. "I'm sorry about this," Steve gets straight to the point. "We need a place to lay low."

"Everyone we know is trying to kill us," Diana adds, Sam pausing before replying to her sentence. "Not everyone," he moves to the side, eyes looking over the street, and lets the trio enter into his home, letting them clean up. Later, after the three are washed and Natasha sitting on the guest bed, Diana watching a child chase after a puppy and Steve dried his hands with a white towel. "You okay?" He asks Natasha, leaning against the doorway as he watched her dry the tips of her hair. "Yeah," she nods, making Steve throw the towel in the dirty clothes basket inside the bathroom, walking over to his friend.

"What's going on?" He asks her, wanting to know all of her problems and set them right; it was what friends did, right?

Natasha sighs a little before answering, dropping the towel to her lap. "When I first joined  _S.H.I.E.L.D_ , I thought I was going straight. But I guess I just traded in the KGB for  _HYDRA_. I thought I knew whose lies I was telling, but. . . I guess I can't tell the difference anymore."

"There's a chance you might be in the wrong business," Steve replies with Natasha's line, making both of them smile softly, Diana walking out of the room to help Sam in any way possible. "I owe you," Natasha states, Steve shaking his head. "It's okay," he didn't want anything; he just wanted the people of the planet he was born and raised in to be safe, healthy, prominent people.

"If it was the other way around," Natasha begins, "and it was down to me to save your life, and you be honest with me, would you trust me to do it?"

"I would now," Steve returns, "and I'm always honest." Natasha smiles up at him, "Well, you seem pretty chipper for someone who just found out they died for nothing."

"Well," Steve sighs and leans back, crossing his arms over his stomach, "I guess I just like to know who I'm fighting." Sam walks in, placing his arm on the wall next to him. "I made breakfast," he says. "If you guys eat that sort of thing." They all walked out and followed him to his kitchen, Natasha leaning back on her palms in her chair, blue eyes scanning the two people before her. Sam was standing by his counter, applying some cream cheese to a toasted bagel. "So, the question is: who in  _S.H.I.E.L.D_  could launch a domestic missile strike?" She asks, Sam's eyes coming up in interest, Diana and Steve knowing the answer to it already. "Pierce," they both say, Steve looking out the window. "Who happens to be sitting on top of the most secure building in the world," Diana adds, shaking her head slowly.

"But he's not working alone, Zola's algorithm was on the Lemurian Star."

"So was Jasper Sitwell," the Amazon princess rests her head on her fist, sighing deeply as Sam walks out of the kitchen without them noticing, going to grab something from a box in the other room. "So, the real question is: How do the two most wanted people in Washington kidnap a  _S.H.I.E.L.D_  officer in broad daylight?" Steve asks just as his new friend saunters into the room, carrying a manila portfolio in his hands. "The answer is you don't," he drops it on the table, a photo of him standing among a group of men wearing what seemed to be large backpacks, an airplane behind them. "What's this?" 

"Call it a resume," Sam shrugs, Steve standing up whilst Natasha picks it up, eyeing the photo on the cover.

"Is this Bakhmala? The Khalid Khandil mission, that was you," Natasha asks, Sam nodding as she turned her head to Steve. "You didn't say he was a para-rescue." She looks back at the photo, handing it to Steve. "Is this Riley?" Sam nods again, replying with a soft  _yeah_. Diana looks at the man, "I heard that they couldn't bring in the choppers because of the  _RPG_ s. Did you use a stealth chute?"

"No," Sam kick off from his counter, picking up the manila to show them the suit photos, outlines, and information. "These." Steve flips it open and reads through the information quickly. "I thought you said you were a pilot."

Sam smirks as he answers, "I never said pilot." The blonde shakes his head, replaying the conversation between him and the man before him, the fact that Sam had retired from the military and he was going back into a fight. "I can't ask you to do this, Sam," he replies. "You got out for a good reason." Sam doesn't take no for an answer, though. "Dude, Captain America needs my help," he argues. "There's no better reason to get back in." 

"Where can we get out hands on one of these?"

"The last one is at Fort Meade," Sam says, "behind three guarded gates and a twelve-inch steel wall." Steve looks at the to women, seeing them shrug their shoulders, "Shouldn't be a problem." He throws down the folder in large block letters, the words  **EXO-7 FALCON, CLASSIFIED**  ― handed out by the Air National Guard ― facing the ceiling.

  ☾☆☽  

**DIANA**  throws Sitwell across a rooftop,  ― on a giant skyscraper, in fact ― the man rolling across the asphalt, Steve and Natasha following her. "What is Zola's Algorithm?" She asks him ferociously, Jasper shaking his head repeatedly, panicked out of his mind. His clean-shaven head gleamed in the sunlight, the afternoon sun beating down on them, "Never heard of it." Steve knows he's lying, and Diana knows it too, able to comprehend the signs of a liar. "What were you doing on the Lemurian Star?" Steve questions, forcing Jasper unto the edge of the building. "I was throwing up," Jasper lies again, "I get seasick." He just smiles as he looks at the three angry S.H.I.E.L.D. agents. "Is this little display meant to insinuate that you're gonna throw me off the roof? Because it's really not your style, Rogers."

"You're right, it's not," Steve agrees, nodding his head. "It's hers." He steps aside, Natasha kicking Jasper's chest, the officer pummeling towards the ground, screaming. "Oh, wait," Natasha seems to have an ADD moment. "What about that girl from accounting? Laura. . . ?"

"Lillian," Steve answers. "Lip piercing, right? And I don't need you to find me a girlfriend, I still have Liayae." Natasha nodding, shrugging her shoulders as well, Sam flying up with Jasper, throwing him down on the roof. Jasper was getting beat up by a group of soldiers. When they all walk towards him, he holds his hands up in fear. "Zola's algorithm is a program. . ." he gasps out, "for choosing Insight's targets!" Diana furrows her dark eyebrows, "What targets?"

"You!" Jasper begins naming off some of the people. "Rogers.A TV anchor in Cairo, the Undersecretary of Defense, a high school valedictorian in Iowa city. Bruce Banner, Stephen Strange, anyone who's a threat to  _HYDRA_! Now, or in the future."

"The future?" Steve asks. "How could it know?" Jasper lets out a cold laugh, "How could it not?"He rises to his feet. "The 21st century is a digital book. Zola taught  _HYDRA_  how to read it." When the four soldiers that stood in front of him gave him confused glances, he begins to go on, giving off the things they learned to read. "Your bank records, medical histories, voting patterns, e-mails, phone calls, your damn _SAT_  scores. Zola's algorithm evaluates people's past to predict their future." Steve presses on, wanting more than that, "And what then?"

"Oh my god," Jasper shakes his head, obviously scared. "Pierce is going to kill me."

"What then?"

_"Then the Insight Helicarriers scratch people off the list. A few million at a time."_

 


	19. 14. THE WINTER SOLDIER

**COUNT HOW MANY TIMES I SAY CAR AND COMMENT THE ANSWER.**

❝ All the king's horses and all the king's men can't put me back together again. ❞ 

☾☆☽

**SAM**  was driving all of them to the Triskelion, Diana, Natasha, and Sitwell stuck in the back, Diana having to scrunch up her legs in order to fit in the middle. She had lost a rock, paper, scissors battle with Nat and was forced to sit in the most uncomfortable spot in the car. She wished that she had taken hers for maximum comfort. " _HYDRA_  doesn't like leaks," Sitwell broke the silence, Sam looking at him in the rear-view mirror. "So why don't you try sticking a cork in it?" 

"Insight's launching in sixteen hours," Natasha blocks Diana's view of the highway in front of them, warning them about the plan. "We're cutting it a bit close here." Steve looks out the window as he responds, "I know. We'll use him to bypass the DNA scans and access the Helicarriers directly."

"What?" Sitwell leans forward. "Are you crazy? That is a terrible, terrible idea." Suddenly a loud thump on the roof of the car warns them that HYDRA was there, a shiny metal hand breaking through Sitwell's window, pulling him out into oncoming traffic in the opposite lanes, the officer getting hit by an 18-wheeler, killed instantly. Bullets rip through the metal, Steve pulling down the emergency brake handle while Natasha jumps on Steve, the dark figure of the Winter Soldier fly onto the street, using his metal arm to stop him, scratching the pavement, sparks flying out of it. Natasha is sitting on Steve's lap, the Winter Soldier's head bowed, cars slamming on their horns. A large military issued Jeep slamming into the smaller blue vehicle, Diana grabbing onto the backs Sam's and Nat's heads to prevent them from getting whiplash, moving towards the  _HYDRA_  agent. The Winter Soldier jumps onto the roof of their car, feet smashing in the rear window, metal hand ripping the steering wheel from the dashboard. Sam is in shock at the damage his car is in, "Shit!" Nat begins shooting at the soldier but misses, Diana seeing him jump onto the Jeep's hood. She unbuckles her seatbelt, climbing out of the window, and jumping at the man. The color of his hair reminded her of someone she used to know, sort of like the muddy brown Bucky's used to be, wavy despite the shortness of it. The crease on his forehead is there too, and she gasps as she recognizes who he is. 

But, even though her heart was telling her not to hurt him, her mind and body work a different way, her fist already flying through the air to punch him. His right arm blocks the attack, left arm ready to strike the woman in front of him, Diana grabbing onto his metal fist, fingers gripping onto it tightly, the metal denting beneath her fingertips. She drops down to her right leg, her other limb sweeping the soldier's feet from underneath him. She hears the unmistakable crash of Sam's car flipping in midair and another thud as the others land on a car door. The car tumbles and breaks into little bits and pieces, an earsplitting screech of metal dragging heavily on asphalt sounding in their ears, Diana wrapping a leg around Bucky's throat, choking him. 

Sam was thrown off of the door and was now rolling across the pavement, Bucky slamming his arm into Diana, throwing her onto the street. He jumps off the hood after her, the car doors opening to reveal other  _HYDRA_ agents, one of them handing Bucky a grenade shooter. He points it at Steve and Natasha, the blonde supersoldier pushing his colleague out of the way as the explosion comes, propelling him into a bus on the street below. The patrons scream as they see him and scream once again as an electrical company truck rams into the side, the bus flipping onto its side. The  _HYDRA_ officersare firing at the three on the highway, Nat running behind a minivan, Sam hiding behind a sedan while Diana rips the trunk door from Sam's automobile, revealing her armor and weapons. She ducks inside, ripping off her jeans, shirt, and boots and switching it to her more favorable clothing, slipping on her tiara and latching the shield onto the small little hook-like leather straps. Natasha fires back at the men, jumping onto the other highway as a grenade explodes next to her, glass shattering and car tires screeching as she rolls to safety. She begins running away, trying hard not to get shot, the Winter Soldier taking aim for her, and pulling the trigger. He hits a car, Nat jumping off the side and unlatching a small pod from her jacket and pressing a button to release a four-pronged grappling hook, swinging to the underpass, the car exploding as it hits the ground.

Bucky looks over the edge and sees nothing, Natasha seeing his shadow on the pavement. She stops short, waiting for a time to strike, and, when she sees that he isn't looking, she fires her gun, a bullet hitting the red lens of his glasses. He sits down, removing the glasses from his face and dropping them to the ground, rising quickly and pressing the trigger on his rifle, wasting bullets on a pavement. Natasha had already moved to the side of the electrical company's truck, hiding quickly as bullets rain down on the car beside her, running off as it gets too close.  _"Я позабочусь о брюнете. Найти его,"_  Bucky says to the man beside him.  **(I'll take care of the brunette. Find him.)**

He jumps over the edge onto the car below, caving in the roof and shattering the glass, strutting off it, ready to find his ex-lover. The other  _HYDRA_  agents drop down after him, firing into the bus, one firing up the machine gun, striking a line of bullets into the machine. Steve runs out, breaking out of the window and grabbing onto his shield, hiding from the rain of shells. Sam uses a small dagger to slice open a man's chest, kicking him over the side, grabbing the discarded rifle. Steve turns his shield, diverting the bullets into someone else, closing in on the machine gun shooter, Sam killing another one to the blonde's right, Steve jumping over the man and uses his shoulder to throw him down the roof, shots calling out into the bright day. 

_"Wow,_ yeah," Diana mutters under her breath as she runs towards Bucky. "Today is a great day to have a picnic, go waterskiing, but instead we're here trying to fight for our lives. Is Tony up for shwarma after this?" 

"Go!" Sam yells down to Steve. "I got this!" The blonde runs off in search of the Winter Soldier, a police car exploding in the process of going into the fight, Bucky reloading his grenade launcher. He stops short when he hears a voice, a crystalline voice with an accent, a woman's. "I make an LZ, twenty-three hundred block of Virginia Avenue," he slowly drops to his knee, metal arm unlatching a spherical hand grenade from his suit and rolls it over to where it's coming from, standing up. "Rendezvous two minutes. Taking fire above and below expressway. Civilians threatened. Repeat, civilians threatened." The grenade hits the pavement, "I make an LZ, twenty-three hundred block at Virginia Avenue. Rendezvous two minutes." It discharges, a large mushroom-like ball of fire rising into the air, the car fracturing into a million little pieces. Bucky draws his eyebrows in when nobody comes out from their spot, no human parts coming from the blast and certainly no cries of pain if somebody was wounded. 

Diana runs up to him, letting out a cry, sword raised over her head as she swings it down, the metal edge catching on to Bucky's metal arm, she raises her arm as he fires a handgun at her, the bullet reflecting off her gauntlet, removing her sword quickly from his arm. "What did they do to you?" She asks as she flips him, metal arm in her strong grasp, watching his steel-blue eyes stare up at her in both confusion and anger. Why would she ask such a question? Who was she and what did she mean? Natasha jumps onto his back, latching a strong rope around Bucky's neck, and tries to choke him, but, since his fleshy arm was free, he grabbed onto the back of her neck and throws her into the side of the Camaro. He punches Diana's face hard, throwing her onto the ground and grabbing his rifle, but Natasha had thrown a small disk at him, blue electricity flying off of it as it puts his arm in shock, straightening it out. Diana and Natasha run off, ready to get the citizens of Washington, D.C. off that particular section of the city, Bucky ripping off the thing with a groan.

His fingers grip into a ball, circling his arm to get some movement in it. "Get out of the way!" Natasha yells at the people around her, Diana rushing them out. "Stay out of the way!" A bullet rips into her shoulder, making her fall and look around at her surroundings, taking in deep breaths, hiding behind a sedan. A thud on a metal roof behind her alarms her, turning around to see him standing on top of a car, Steve running up to his old friend. The Winter Soldier's metal fist comes down on the Captain's shield, Bucky kicking the blonde off and shoots at him but he runs out of bullets quickly, discarding his rifle and jumping off the vehicle. Steve runs around the same car as bullets fly towards him, but they quickly stop as Diana kicks the weapons out of the Soldier's hand, forcing the tip of her boot to connect with Bucky's forehead. This doesn't knock him out, instead, he is left with a bleeding head that will soon ooze out enough to kill him.

Bucky pulls out another gun, trying to kill Diana, but she once again kicks it out from him. Steve punches Bucky, the Winter Soldier grabbing onto his shield and twists it around, Steve's body turning with it, Diana dropping to her knee to sweep-kick Bucky's legs from underneath him. Bucky makes quick work though, standing up as soon as he hits the ground and steals the shield from Steve, punching him to the ground and, as soon as Steve begins to run to him, throws it back, lodging it in the back of a van. He unlatches a small knife from his pants, Steve yelling at Diana, "Go find Sam!" She nods before running off, jumping over pieces of broken cars. When Steve sees the knife, he remembers something from the 40's.

_"Should withstand your average German bayonet. Although HYDRA's not going to attack you both with a pocket knife. I hear you're kind of attached." Howard pats Steve's showcase shield as they walk down the table again. Diana was wearing a dark grey skirt with its matching jacket, a white collar peeking out from under the neckline of the buttoned overcoat and a hat was resting on her head. Her hair was put into a bun to make it stay out of her way._

_"It's handier than you might think," Steve replies, watching Howard scoff._

He pushes the thought away, his arms coming in contact with the Soldier's trying to keep the weapon away from his body, the man before him flipping it with such ease, it was almost like watching a ballerina perform  _32 Fouettes_  from  **Swan Lake**. Steve lands a punch, kicking the Soldier's stomach, throwing him into the van's side, denting it, the knife clattering on the ground, Steve jumping and forcing his knee into his opponent's chest, the window shattering. Steve throws him onto the ground, but his neck is gripped tightly in the Winter Soldier's metal hand, getting thrown backward. When Bucky's metal hand makes contact with the asphalt, it breaks underneath it, Steve pivoting away from it. He is attacked by a storm of punches, his side coming in contact with the van, Bucky unsheathing another knife. He kicks Steve onto the van, his knife mere inches away from the supersoldier's face, and he uses his alloy arm to force it down, the cheek **(** _what the blade is also called_   **)**  tearing the car's metal, sliding it down the side with Steve along with it. 

Steve throws him onto the ground, grabbing his shield quickly, blocking all of Bucky's attacks, and forcing the edge into the upper arm of the metal. When it doesn't break through, he just slams it into Bucky's blood-soaked face and grabs onto his chin, launching him away, the mask coming off with one easy move. He's on his feet, waiting for something, and when nothing comes, he turns to face Steve.

"Bucky?" It tumbles out of Steve's lips in a perplexed manner, wanting to know what happened to him.

"Who the hell is Bucky?" Sam flies down as soon as Bucky aims his handgun at Steve, forcing the heel of his boot into his back, landing on the ground, running. Steve can see Bucky's bewildered eyes, seeing that he was possibly regaining some form of information, or it could've possibly still have been confusion, but soon enough Steve's gaze meets the end of Bucky's gun.

_"Sometimes the person you would take a bullet for is the one that's behind the gun,"_ he remembered Diana telling him one late night after they had just binge-watched the first season of  I Love Lucy, seeing her heartbroken face in the pale moonlight. 

A small missile flies towards Bucky, the truck beside him going in a blast. Natasha leans against a van, Diana landing on her feet next to her. Sirens are heard, a black SUV making its way towards them, another Jeep trailing behind it, three motorcycles surrounding them. S.H.I.E.L.D. agents pour out, aiming their weapons at them, the group of soldiers in front of them dropping whatever weapons they had. Rumlow kicks the back of Steve's knees, Diana dropping to hers slowly, a local News helicopter flying above them. Rollins' rifle barrel is close to Steve's head, the blonde can feel the ghost of it, "Put the gun down. Not here." Rollins doesn't move. "Not here!" 


	20. 15. "MEET ME ON THE BATTLEFIELD."

  ❝ Life is tough, my darling, but so are you. ❞ 

  ☾☆☽

**"FOUR**  holes, start digging."

It was all Rumlow said to the other  _HYDRA_  agents before opening up the van's doors, looking into a pit of nothingness, a hole cut out from the bottom, the edges still red hot. One of the guards had been knocked unconscious, the other nowhere to be found. It was Agent Maria Hill, one of Fury's most trusted advisors, who was inside of that van to take the four people to a secret facility Fury had. "GSW," Maria tells the doctors there. "She's lost at least a pint."

"Maybe two," Sam appends, making sure Natasha had her hand on her wound. 

"Let me take her," a doctor with greying hair and large glasses runs up to them, pressing harder on Natasha's shoulder, breathing heavily through his nose, the smell of iron filling his senses, but he didn't mind; he was used to it. "He wants to see him first," Maria says, taking them to where Fury was held. When she drew the curtains back, Fury picked up his head from his pillow, looking at them with his brown eye, a large bruise forming underneath it, his arm in a sling, the other resting against his chest. The three that have worked with him for years look at him in confusion, wondering how he had survived his injuries. He had flatlined on the operation table. "About damn time," he says in his regular manner.

Later on, as Natasha's wound is being treated, all of them sitting around the bed, Fury opening his mouth to speak. "Lacerated spinal column, cracked sternum, shattered collarbone, perforated liver, one hell of a headache."

"Don't forget your collapsed lung," the doctor reminded him, pressing hard on the broken skin and muscle, Natasha wincing at the pain that shot up through her arm. One of her hands was placed in Diana's, the Amazonian princess letting her squeeze hard if she was in any sort of pain. "Oh," Nick nods, "let's not forget about that. Otherwise, I'm good."

"They cut you open, your heart stopped."

"Tetrodotoxin B," Nick replies. "Slows the pulse to one beat a minute. Banner developed it for stress. Didn't work so great for him, but we found a use for it."

"Why all the secrecy? Why not just tell us?"

"Any attempt on the director's life had to look successful," Maria explains, reminding him of the assassination attempt made by Bucky. "Can't kill you if you're already dead," Fury adds to the previous statement, straightening up. "Besides, I wasn't sure who to trust."

  ☾☆☽

**INSIDE**  a bank vault, a  _HYDRA_  engineer fixed the dents in Bucky's metal arm, blue sparks flying around them, Bucky thinking about the blonde man and the brunette woman on the bridge. They both looked familiar and he wondered who they were and why they seemed to know him, or, at least, his past self. . . if he even had a past self. "Sergeant Barnes," a heavily accented voice comes from one of the memories, a short man with glasses and little to no hair coming into view, snow falling around them.

Then another.

One that showed the two familiar faces grabbing for him.

_"Fire again!" Bucky picks up Steve's discarded shield, firing at the man as many times as possible, but he is thrown back by a blast. He dangles on one of the bars that had held on weakly. Steve throws his shield, the agent landing on his back. Diana and Steve run to the hole, holding out their hands in a weak attempt to save him, but Diana knew, her heart knew, that he won't be able to make it._

'He won't make it,'  _her head kept saying. '_ He has to,'  _her heart kept repeating, protesting. Steve climbs out, trying to get closer to his best friend, Diana holding on to his suit to make sure he didn't fall, but it was loose enough to where he can move. "Grab my hand!" Steve holds out his gloved hand. "Diana would pull us back in." Bucky reached out with one hand, but the bar broke away from the wall and he fell, screaming out in fear, his legs and arms flailing. Steve's eyes collected tears, Diana screaming a loud, "NO!"_

He straightens up, chest heaving as another memory came to him. This time, it was only the  _brunette, and apparently, they had just gotten finished making love because he could feel their sweat mingling, slow breaths pouring out of their lips, smiles written on their faces as they looked at each other. She opened her mouth to speak and he could smell different kinds of fruit from coconuts, pineapples, raspberries to blueberries, and she spoke in an accented voice, "Meet me on the battlefield, even on the darkest night. I will be your sword and shield, your camouflage, and you will be mine. Echoes of the shots ring out, we may be the first to fall. Everything can stay the same or we can change it all."_

The scene changes to where the old, bald man from before came back.  _"The procedure has already started," he smiles down at him, and the sound of a saw alerts him, looking down to see his left arm being amputated to replace it with the new metal arm he had now. "You are the new fist of HYDRA," he grabs someone by the neck, and in the bank vault, he punches the engineer beside him into a wall. "Put him on ice," he is frozen in the dream,_  Rollins pointing his gun at him, preventing him from attacking any further. Alexander Pierce walks into the vault he's held in. "Sir, he's unstable," a man with a white button-up shirt and red bow tie warns as he walks in with Rumlow trailing behind him. 

"Mission report," he orders and Bucky says nothing, a blank stare on his face. "Mission report, now." When Bucky doesn't say anything, Pierce comes closer and strikes Bucky across the face, the soldier's head whipping to the side at the force. "The man and woman on the bridge. . ." he finally says, having a vision of Steve calling him Bucky. "Who were they?"

"You met them earlier this week on an earlier assignment."

"I knew them," Pierce sits next to him, beginning to speak.

"Your work has been a gift to mankind," Pierce tells him. "You shaped the century and I need you to do it one more time. Society is at a tipping point between order and chaos. Tomorrow morning we're gonna give it a push. But, if you don't do your part, I can't do mine, and  _HYDRA_  can't give the world the freedom it deserves." Bucky is torn between  _HYDRA_  and the two old friends. "But I knew them," he states again, Pierce turning to the scientists behind him. "Prep him."

"He's been out of cryo-freeze for too long."

"Then wipe him and start over," Bucky's arms are strapped to the chair with metal restraints, a scientist putting a guard in his mouth to stop him from grinding his teeth together or chew on his tongue, the machine leaning back and two metal arms coming down to either side of his head, blue electrical flashes coming from the face plates, Bucky screaming in pain as the procedure starts. 

  ☾☆☽

**FURY**  stares down at a photo of Pierce, looking much younger than he is now, shaking the hand of the then president. The rest of the group looked at him as he threw the paper down on the table, leaning forward. "This man declined the Nobel Peace Prize. He said,  _Peace wasn't an achievement, it was a responsibility._  See, it's stuff like this that gives me trust issues."

"We have to stop the launch," Diana says, tapping her left leg in a rhythmic beat. "I don't think the council's accepting my calls anymore," Fury replies, opening up a case that held three chips, the wires inside of them forming a network of veins. They all straighten up at the sight of them.

"What's that?"

"Once the Helicarriers reach three thousand feet, they'll triangulate with Insight satellites becoming fully weaponized," Maria turns a computer around, showing them the plans set for the Helicarriers, lines connecting them with satellite-shaped forms on the screen. "We need to breach those carriers and replace their targeting blades with our own," Fury seconds.

"One or two won't cut it," Maria shakes her head. "We need to link all three carriers for this to work because if even one of those ships remains operational a whole lot of people are gonna die."

"We have to assume everyone aboard those carriers is _HYDRA._  We need to get past them, insert the server blades, and maybe, just maybe, we can salvage what's left. . ."

"We're not salvaging anything," Steve disagrees, shaking his head at the older man. "We're not just taking down the carriers, Nick, we're taking down  _S.H.I.E.L.D._ " Fury raises an eyebrow at him, shaking his head at Steve, " _S.H.I.E.L.D._ has nothing to do with it." Steve still doesn't back down, "You gave me this mission, this is how it ends.  _S.H.I.E.L.D_.'s been compromised, you said so yourself.  _HYDRA_  grew right under your nose and nobody noticed."

"Why do you think we're meeting in this cave? I noticed."

"And how many paid the price before you did."

"Look. . . I didn't know about Barnes."

"Even if you have, would you have told me? Or would you have compartmentalized that too?  _S.H.I.E.L.D_.,  _HYDRA_ , it all goes."


	21. 16. "YOU NEED TO KEEP BOTH EYES OPEN."

❝ Here's to strong women; may we know them, may we be them, may we raise them. ❞

  ☾☆☽  

**"ATTENTION,"**  Steve says into the microphone as Diana, Maria, and Sam stood behind him, "all  _S.H.I.E.L.D._  agents. This is Steve Rogers. You've heard a lot about me over the last few days, some of you were even ordered to hunt me down. But I think it's time you know the truth.  _S.H.I.E.L.D._  is not what we thought it was, it's been taken over by _HYDRA._  Alexander Pierce is their leader. The  _STRIKE_  and Insight crew are  _HYDRA_  as well. I don't know how many more, but I know they're in the building. They could be standing right next to you. They almost have what they want: absolute control. They shot Nick Fury and it won't end there. If you launch those Helicarriers today,  _HYDRA_  will be able to kill anyone that stands in their way, unless we stop them. I know I'm asking a lot, but the price of freedom is high, it always has been, and it's a price I'm willing to pay. And if I'm the only one, then so be it. But I'm willing to bet I'm not." 

When he finishes, Sam speaks up, "Did you write that down first or was it off the top of your head?" Natasha wasn't with them, trying to gain intel on Pierce and keep a close eye on him, pretending to be one of the council members ― the older woman with the blonde hair ― while wearing a blue suit. 

"They're initiating launch," Maria says into her earpiece as Diana, Sam, and Steve all run to the Helicarriers. "Hey, Cap, Diana, how can we tell the good guys from the bad guys?" Sam asks them, Diana answering his question. 

"If they are shooting at you, they're bad," she replies, looking at him. "I thought you already knew this." Sam, in his suit, flies off, while Steve heads down, trying to get to his designated Helicarrier while Diana goes to the right. The  _HYDRA_  agents begin shooting at them, Sam flying around to avoid being wounded or shot down, his years of training and expertise finally coming back to him in a flash. Pierce watches the commotion outside, then turns to council member Singh, "Let me ask you a question. What if Pakistan marched into Mumbai tomorrow, and you knew that they were gonna drag your daughters into a soccer stadium for execution?" He hands Singh a flute of champagne. "And you could just stop it with a flick of the switch. Wouldn't you? Wouldn't you all?"

"Not if it was your switch," he throws the glass to the ground, the gold fizzing liquid spilling across the floor, the glass shattering into a million little pieces, one of Pierce's agents handing him a gun and points it at Singh, Natasha thinking quickly, kicking the tan male away and taking down the other agents. She takes the gun and points it at Pierce, removing her disguise as Hawley. "I'm sorry," she says sarcastically. "Did I step on your moment?"

One of the Charlie weapons techs speaks up, referring to the Helicarriers. "Satellites in range at three thousand feet." 

"Falcon, status?" Maria asks, looking at the computer in front of her as she types in commands. "Engaging," a  _HYDRA_  jet comes towards Sam and begins shooting at him. "Shit!" He flies off and manages to avoid getting hit while Diana was fighting off  _HYDRA_  agents as she tried to go to her carrier, swinging her sword as she cut deep into their stomachs, the crimson blood and guts dropping to the ground, leaving dead men in her wake. "Eight minutes," Maria says into her comm, Diana replying back quickly. "Working on it!" She gets to the control center of the Helicarrier easily, placing in the chip she carried inside her gauntlet, pressing the button to close it.

"Alpha locked."

"Falcon, where are you now?"

"I had to take a detour!" He is flying towards his designated carrier, heat-seeking missiles shot at him by  _HYDRA,_ so he decides to go back to the carrier, and manages to get the missiles to hit the side of the glass paneling, making a doorway for him to go through. "Oh, yeah!" He goes in and puts in the chip, replying back to Hill. "I'm in," he says. "Bravo locked." He flies out quickly.

"Two down, one more to go."

"All  _S.H.I.E.L.D._ pilots, scramble," a pilot says to the others. "We're the only air support Captain Rogers has got." Bucky suddenly appears, firing at the agents, killing them all, kicking one into the spinning blades of a Quinjet and throwing a grenade into another. Back inside the building, Natasha types in different codes into the computer, "Disabling the encryption is an executive order; it takes two Alpha level members." Nat looks at Pierce, cocking her head. "Don't worry," she says to him. "Company's coming." The sound of a helicopter's rotor blades breaking the air fill their ears, Pierce and the others looking behind them as they watch an all-black helicopter land on the docking site, and a black boot appears underneath the undercarriage, followed by another and the tail end of a trenchcoat.  _Fury's_  trenchcoat. He opens the glass door separating him from the inside, his coattail billowing behind him with the gush of air he let out, looking at all of the  _S.H.I.E.L.D._ members with his one eye, keeping his broken left arm close to his ribs. Pierce nods at him with a small smile, but Fury just glares at him.  _He_  was the person who ordered his assassination. "Did you get my flower?" Alexander puts his hands on his hips, but Fury doesn't answer. "I'm glad you're here, Nick."

"Really?" He steps down from the elevated floor. "Cause I thought you had me killed."

"You know how the game works."

"So why make me head of  _S.H.I.E.L.D._?"

"Cause you're the best," Alexander seems to be lying, but Nick shrugs it off, wanting to hear more of his explanation. "And the most ruthless person I ever met." Fury bows his head, keeping his eyes locked on Pierce's blue ones. His mother always told him that blue eyes reminded people of deep oceans and endless skies, but brown eyes remind them of a black hole, infinite and neverending. It made him proud to have brown eyes, even if they were a very common color, "I did what I did to protect people." Pierce shakes his head. "Our enemies are your enemies, Nick. Disorder, war; just a matter of time before a dirty bomb goes off in Moscow or an EMP fries Chicago. Diplomacy, holding action, Band-Aid. And you know where I learned that. Bogota. You didn't ask, you just did what had to be done. I can bring order to the lives of seven billion people by sacrificing twenty million. It's the next step, Nick. You have the courage to take it."

"No, I have the courage not to," Fury takes Pierce's upper arm in his hand, leading him to the glass wall holding a hologram for the encryption lock, Natasha typing something into the computer.  _"Retinal scanner active."_  Nat moves away from the computer and puts a gun up to Pierce's head, making sure he didn't escape, but the leader of both  _S.H.I.E.L.D._  and  _HYDRA_  just chuckles, turning to Nick with a smirk. "You don't think we've wiped your clearance from the system?" 

"I know you erased my password," Nick responds. "Probably deleted my retinal scan, but if you wanna stay ahead of me, Mr. Secretary. . ." he moves his leather eyepatch away, showing his blind eye with the scar going diagonally, the breakage of the pupil and iris, now a milky white, with the purple scars on the top and bottom lids. "You need to keep _both_ eyes open." He nods his head at the glass and walks away to his own scanner, holding his damaged eye up to the scanning device,  _"Alpha level confirm. Encryption code accepted. Safeguards removed."_  They both look at each other with hatred.


	22. 17. TILL THE END OF THE LINE.

   **˖*°࿐ chapter seventeen**  
xvii.  TILL THE END OF THE LINE

 **"PEOPLE**  are going to die, Buck," Steve faces off Bucky in the last Helicarrier, his best friend's face left uncovered from the muzzle he wore when they first fought, the once bright, steel blue eyes now a dull gray. "I can't let that happen." They stood about fifteen feet away from each other, Steve shaking his head in remorse. "Please don't make me do this." When he doesn't do anything, the first supersoldier sets his jaw and wipes any emotion from his face, throwing his shield and the Winter Soldier blocks it with his metal arm, the metal disk flying back to his hand. Bullets ricochet off it, and Bucky takes a second handgun out, shooting Steve, the bullet ripping some muscle off as it just skims his body. The pain erupted at once, but he didn't let it stop him as he let out a small groan, Bucky standing up to hit Steve again, but is hit back by the shield, his back slamming against the metal grating of the walkway.

He takes out a knife, the blonde sighing softly before engaging in hand-to-hand combat, making sure to stay clear of the knife and block any of the punches and kicks coming his way. When his shield makes contact, Bucky is thrown back a few feet, and Steve takes this time to press the combination number into the pin pad, the hard drive holder coming down, and he turns around quickly to block Bucky's attacks. No, not Bucky;  _HYDRA_ 's attacks.

The metal plates in the Soldier's arms shift to put more weight in it, pushing the Captain back, and the blonde male kicks him squarely in the chest, going back to the hard drive rack to put in  _SHIELD_ 's last disk. Reaching into his belt's pocket, he feels it with his gloved fingertips but has to abandon it to hold the vibranium shield up to stop James' fist from coming in contact with his face, a deep bell-like note vibrating through it. Steve pushes him back, grunting at the force of it as Bucky now had the same strength he had. He swings his shield, hitting Bucky's metal arm just once, but he swings it again to hit it once more. He punches him, Bucky grunting as his friend's fist comes in contact with the fleshy part of his cheek, knocking him against a railing. He cries out as he runs towards the blonde, using all of his body weight to throw him and himself over the railing to the ground below. 

The shield is discarded elsewhere.

The drive falls out of Steve's grip and slides down to Bucky's feet, but the Winter Soldier doesn't even give it a second look, running to meet the Captain. He lands a volley of punches to his side before getting punched himself, but his metal arm reacted quickly and backhands Steve, flipping him over and making him side down the walkway. Steve's fingers grip the drive as he goes past it, Bucky going onto his side to slide down behind him, standing up at the edge where the blonde sat. Steve lets go of the drive so it wouldn't get crushed in his fist. He kicks Bucky off the metal landing. 

He jumps after him.

He runs after the drive, and he's only a few feet away from it before him shield hits him in the back, throwing him off his feet. Bucky raises his gun, ready to shoot at him when Steve raises his shield to block the four bullets meant to kill him. 

Outside, Diana is slashing through  _HYDRA_  soldiers before putting her sword back in its sheath, raising her arms to create an  _X_ , smirking as three men came too close to her. She pulls her arms away from each other, the orange field expanding as it traveled through the air, bursting some of the window panes in the Helicarriers above hers. The three men collapse on the ground, dead.

The two supersoldiers in the Helicarrier jump at the sound of breaking glass, and when Steve looks down, he sees the familiar orange glow coming from the lowest aircraft. Diana. He throws his shield, but Bucky's arm blocks the attack, pulling out a knife from a sheath that was hidden under his suit, swinging at the man before him, Steve stepping back in time to just let it graze the air. The knife comes down again, his arm blocking it, but the metal arm presses down and drives it into his muscle. He screams in pain. He headbutts Bucky once, twice, ignoring the pain flaring up in his shoulder, adrenaline kicking in even more to block it out. He is thrown into a metal support. 

He jumps at Bucky, who is scrambling for the drive, and picks him up by the neck, lifting him a few feet off the ground. He flips him, seeing that the drive is held tightly in his closed fist, his arm pulled back and Steve's other hand coming down to push against his head. "Drop it!" Bucky's arm punches the air meekly, "Drop it!" Steve snaps Bucky's arm, making him scream in pain, but his hand is still holding the flash drive. He wasn't planning on letting it go. Steve flips them again so the brunette was now on his back, while Steve laid on his back. He put him in a chokehold, Bucky's legs flailing as he struggled for air, his metal arm coming up to try to peel Steve's from his neck. Steve traps it between his thigh and calf. 

Bucky's hand lets go of the drive once he runs out of air. Steve lets him go, picking it up and running back to the compartment. Maria watches the time run low. "One minute." 

The Captain grabs hold of a bar, flipping his body over it. He runs up, but before he gets close to the compartment, a bullet tears through his muscle. He collapses in pain, holding the bullet wound in his hand, but the adrenaline rushing through him makes him go on, standing up to begin running again. He is climbing on the bars when another bullet rips through the air, but it doesn't touch him.

He keeps going.

"30 seconds, Cap!" 

30 seconds, alright. He was going to make it. He hobbles to the compartment, drive in hand, "Stand by!" He is about to put the drive in when another bullet rips through him. "Cha-" He collapses again. He looks down at his bullet wound, blood seeping through the red and white striped of his suit. He only had a few seconds left, so he made them count: he places the drive inside its meant position. The red dots representing the targets all disappear from the computer screen, "Charlie locked." 

"Where are the targets?" The commander asks in confusion. " _Where_  are the targets?"

"Okay, Cap, Diana, get out of there." Maria redirects the targets to the three Helicarriers. The guns on the ship immediately point to one another, fear showing in the Commander's eyes as he realizes what's going on. "Fire now." 

"But Steve. . ."

"Do it!"

"Listen to the Captain, Maria," Diana says softly. She was going to lose a best friend and a lover in one day. She lost them once, and now she's losing them again. She prepares herself for the heartbreak once more, knowing that no matter how many times you go through this, it always feels like the first time. "Do it now!" Maria slides it down to full power and presses the fire button. Bullets rain from the guns, blowing holes in the sides of the ships. Steve holds onto a rail. Diana stands as she feels the ship vibrate under her. She opens her eyes, ready to jump pver to the ship to save both of them, but someone grabs hold of her. 

More like  _people_  hold on to her.

They planned that if they were going to die, she was dying with them. She punches one in the nose, blood breaking out from cartilage, kicking another in the shin as she turned around and headbutts another. She unsheathes her sword, taking down every man around her. She knew that about the time she was done with everyone, the ships would already be gone. 

Steve tries to lift a beam that fell on Bucky, grunting as he raised it just enough for him to get out. He slips out from underneath and the support is put back on the ground. "You know me," he tries to bring back a memory.

"No, I don't!" Bucky punches him in response. The ship tears through a S.H.I.E.L.D. building. "Bucky. . . you've known me your whole life." Bucky grunts as he swings again. "Your name. . ." Steve says, "is James. . . Buchanan. . . Barnes."

"Shut up!" Bucky's voice breaks when he screams, punching him again. Steve takes off his helmet, thinking that maybe, just maybe, his face would bring back memories. They breathe heavily, in pain from their wounds, their adrenaline already leaving. "I'm not gonna fight you," he drops his shield, the disk falling down to the water below. "You're my friend." Bucky throws himself at him, throwing him back on the ground. 

"You're my mission," he begins landing punch after punch, Steve not moving a muscle as he lets his friend take out his anger. "You're. . . My. . . Mission!" He says this as if he's reminding himself, not Steve.

"Then finish it. . ." He says softly. "Cause I'm with you 'till the end of the line." This stops him, tear-filled blue eyes looking down on him as if a memory came back, seeming as if he was heartbroken from hurting his best friend. A beam falls, breaking the glass and metal they were on, Bucky's metal arm grabbing hold of the side to keep him up while Steve fell to the water. His body curls up as soon as he hits it, knocking him out, the water cleaning a little bit of blood from his wounds. He sinks, ready to die, ready to meet his parents wherever they went to after they passed. 

A hand came down, pulling on his suit. 

Bucky drags him back on shore, holding his broken arm close to his body, replaying the memory in his head over again.  _"Cause I'm with you till the end of the line, pal,"_  he hears it again, remembering how they came back from Steve's mother's funeral. He had just offered Steve a spot at his place, how he didn't want the small man to live by himself, where he could get hurt cutting some onions. He turns around and leaves. 

. . .

**Captain America, the Winter Soldier, and Wonder Woman will return in Virago.**


End file.
